String Theory Books: Intro & Advanced Level | GSW, Polchinski, McMahon, Becker

[dx]

Some good introductory string theory books that I know are

GSW
Polchinski
McMahon
Becker

What are the good books at a more advanced level? Are there any such books, or do I have to dig it out of the research papers? There is a set of books called "mirror symmetry" and "dirichlet branes and mirror symmetry" which treat string theory at a much more advanced level. They are good, written by mathematicians for mathematicians (still good material on various topics.) Are there any other books that people know of at the level of these books?

 

[Demystifier]

Of those 4 books, only McMahon is really introductory, while the other 3 are much more advanced. If you want something even more advanced, you have to read research papers.

 

[dx]

Of those 4 books, only McMahon is really introductory, while the other 3 are much more advanced. If you want something even more advanced, you have to read research papers.

Yes, in a sense McMahon is more introductory, but in a different sense it is not, because it covers the superstring also which introductory books like Zweibach and Tong's lecture notes (based on Polchinski volume 1) do not cover. Topics like GSO projection, Ramond sector, Neveu-Schwarz sector, RNS superstring, Green-Schwarz formalism etc. Polchinski volume one does not cover any of these topics. Neither does the introductory book by Zwiebach cover these topics. Although it is geared towards beginners, it can be used in a slightly different way by physically mature readers, since it covers all the essential ideas even of superstrings, so they can use it to get a quick overview and then get the details in GSW and polchinski vol 2. I think one of the problems with books like Zwiebach is the fact that it primarily only treats the bosonic string, which doesn't really make sense. Supersymmetry is conceptually fundamental to string theory; it is inherently a supersymmetric theory. In the words of polchinski, "The bosonic string exists only as a mutilation of the superstring." Certainly the bosonic string is useful as a toy model to illustrate some of the ideas, but in the end you have to go to the superstring to get to all the other fundamental ideas.

 

[dx]

Another example of a book which is more advanced than the ones I mentioned is "Quantum Fields and Strings: A course for mathematicians."

It is also a book written to teach physics to professional mathematicians, together with "super-homework." I would say the treatment of string theory is pretty much the same level as the books I mentioned, but its coverage of QFT is far more advanced than normal QFT books. For instance, in volume I, there are lectures on Wightman QFT by David Kazhdan.