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In this paper we address the relation between the star exponentials emerging within the Deformation Quantization formalism and Feynman's path integrals associated with propagators in quantum dynamics. In order to obtain such a relation, we start by visualizing the quantum propagator as an integral transform of the star exponential by means of the symbol corresponding to the time evolution operator and, thus, we introduce Feynman's path integral representation of the propagator as a sum over all the classical histories. The star exponential thus constructed has the advantage that it does not depend on the convergence of formal series, as commonly understood within the context of Deformation Quantization. We include some basic examples to illustrate our findings, recovering standard results reported in the literature. Further, for an arbitrary finite dimensional system, we use the star exponential introduced here in order to find a particular representation of the star product which resembles the one encountered in the context of the quantum field theory for a Poisson sigma model., Comment: 18 pages, no figures

Two dimensional gauged linear sigma models(GLSMs) with $(0,2)$ supersymmetry and $U(1)$ gauge group possesing global symmetries are considered. For the case obtained as a reduction from the $(2,2)$ supersymmetric GLSM, we find the Abelian T-dual, comparing with previous studies. Then, the Abelian T-dual model of the pure $(0,2)$ theory is found. Instanton corrections are also discussed in both situations. In the cases under study we explore the vacua for the scalar potential and we analyse the target space geometry of the dual model. A model with gauge symmetry $U(1)\times U(1)$ is also discussed as precursor of an interesting example with non-Abelian global symmetry. Non-Abelian T-dualization of $U(1)$ $(0,2)$ $2d$ GLSMs is implemented for models which arise as a reduction from $(2,2)$ supersymmetry; we study a concrete model with $U(1)$ gauge symmetry and $SU(2)$ global symmetry. It is shown that for a positive definite scalar potential, the dual vacua to $\mathbb{P}^1$ constitutes a disk. Instanton corrections to the superpotential are obtained and shown to be encoded in a shifting of the holomorphic function ${E}$. We conclude by analyzing an example with $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ global symmetry and we obtain that the space of dual vacua to $\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb{P}^1$ consists of two copies of the disk, also for the case of positive definite potential. Here we are able to fully integrate the equations of motion leading to non-Abelian duality, improving with respect to previous $(2,2)$ studies., Comment: 35+1 pages, no figures

An action for a prospect of a $p$-adic open superstring on a target Minkowski space is proposed. The action is constructed for `worldsheet' fields taking values in the $p$-adic field $\mathbb{Q}_p$, but it is assumed to be obtained from a discrete action on the Bruhat-Tits tree. This action is proven to have an analog of worldsheet supersymmetry and the superspace action is also constructed in terms of superfields. The action does not have conformal symmetry, however it is implemented in the definition of the amplitudes. The tree-level amplitudes for this theory are obtained for $N$ vertex operators corresponding to tachyon superfields and a Koba-Nielsen formula is obtained. Finally, four-point amplitudes are computed explicitly and they are compared to previous work on $p$-adic superstring amplitudes., Comment: 26 pages, no figures

The double copy relates scattering amplitudes and classical solutions in Yang-Mills theory, gravity, and related field theories. Previous work has shown that this has an explicit realisation in self-dual YM theory, where the equation of motion can be written in a form that maps directly to Pleba\'nski's heavenly equation for self-dual gravity. The self-dual YM equation involves an area-preserving diffeomorphism algebra, two copies of which appear in the heavenly equation. In this paper, we show that this construction is a special case of a wider family of heavenly-type examples, by (i) performing Moyal deformations, and (ii) replacing the area-preserving diffeomorphisms with a less restricted algebra. As a result, we obtain a double-copy interpretation for hyper-Hermitian manifolds, extending the previously known hyper-K\"ahler case. We also introduce a double-Moyal deformation of the heavenly equation. The examples where the construction of Lax pairs is possible are manifestly consistent with Ward's conjecture, and suggest that the classical integrability of the gravity-type theory may be guaranteed in general by the integrability of at least one of two gauge-theory-type single copies., Comment: 34 pages, 1 figure

We propose a quantum bosonic qubit model on a fcc lattice to obtain mimetic dark matter. The general relativity contribution is implemented similarly to other works but it differs strongly on the implementation of the constraint equations and their meaning. Different theories as mimetic dark matter, the vector mimetic dark mater, and tensor-vector-scalar models are implemented on the lattice. In all these cases, a generalized Gauss' law incorporates an additional topological defect depending on the type of generalization, but always fitting in the structure of the topological defects from general relativity contribution., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, typos corrected, references added

The emergence of a Kalb-Ramond field and string charge in the lattice is discussed. The local bosonic model with rotor variables placed on the faces of a cubic lattice is considered. The coupling model consisting of the Maxwell fields and the Kalb-Ramond field is given. This construction naturally incorporates the emerging coupling between both gauge and string fields. In the process, an object that resembles to a D-brane on the lattice is introduced., Comment: 19+1 pages, 8 figures, added references, corrected typos

In this work half-flat metrics are obtained from Hitchin's equations. The SU$(\infty)$ Hitchin's equations are obtained and as a consequence of them, the Husain-Park equation is found. Considering that the gauge group is SU$(2)$, some solutions associated to Liouville, sinh-Gordon and Painlev\'e III equations are taken and, through Moyal deformations, solutions of the SU$(\infty)$ Hitchin's equations are obtained. From these solutions, hamiltonian vector fields are determined, which in turn are used to construct the half-flat metrics. Following an approach of Dunajski, Mason and Woodhouse, it is also possible to construct half-flat metrics on ${\cal M} \times\mathbb{CP}^{1}$., Comment: 27+1 pages, no figures

We establish a relation between the boundary and the topological entropies for the conformal minimal models in some of the simplest models of the unitary A-A series. We show that in these models the boundary entropy is a difference of topological entropies. Furthermore, we define the crosscap entropy as the analog to the boundary entropy in non-oriented theories. The crosscap entropy is defined as the logarithm of the degeneracy of the ground state due to the presence of crosscaps and it can be expressed in terms of the crosscap coefficients. This crosscap entropy has not an explicit relation to the topological entropy as the boundary entropy. However, we propose a new quantity, $\hat S = \ln P_{0i}$ defined in terms of the modular transformation $P$ between the open and closed channel of the M\"obius partition function. With this quantity, the crosscap entropy can be regarded as a difference of entropies, very similar to the boundary entropy. We also compute the left-right entanglement entropy (LREE) for crosscap states and we express it in terms of $\hat S$. An explicit example of the LREE of the crosscap state in Wess-Zumino-Witten is carried out, Comment: 24 pages, change of title, major changes along the article, subsection 2.2 was added and section 3 has completely changed. New references were added

In general terms duality consists of two descriptions of one physical system by using degrees of freedom of different nature. There are different kinds of dualities and they have been extremely useful to uncover the underlying strong coupling dynamics of gauge theories in various dimensions and those of the diverse string theories. Perhaps the oldest example exhibiting this property is Maxwell theory, which interchanges electric and magnetic fields. An extension of this duality involving the sources is also possible if the magnetic monopole is incorporated. At the present time a lot has been understood about duality in non-Abelian gauge theories as in the case of N=4 supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions or in the Seiberg-Witten duality for N=2 theories. Moreover, a duality that relates a gravitational theory (or a string theory) and a conformal gauge theory, as in the case of gauge/gravity correspondence, have been also studied with considerable detail. The case of duality between two gravitational theories is the so called gravitational duality. At the present time, this duality has not been exhaustively studied, however some advances have been reported in the literature. In the present paper we give a general overview of this subject. In particular we will focus on non-Abelian dualities, applied to various theories of gravity as developed by the authors, based in the Rocek-Verlinde duality procedure. Finally, as a new development in this direction, we study the gravitational duality in Hitchin's gravity in seven and six dimensions and their relation is also discussed., Comment: 17 pages, paper to be published in Frontiers in Physics

The problem of a color-charged point particle interacting with a four dimensional Yang-Mills gauge theory is revisited. The radiation damping is obtained inspired in the Dirac's computation. The difficulties in the non-abelian case were solved by using an ansatz for the Li\'enard-Wiechert potentials, already used in the literature for finding solutions to the Yang-Mills equations. Three non-trivial examples of radiation damping for the non-abelian particle are discussed in detail., Comment: 33 pages, no figures, typos corrected, references added

Quantum cosmology of the Friedmann-Lema\^{i}tre-Robertson-Walker model with cosmological constant in the Ho$\check{\rm r}$ava-Lifshitz type gravity is studied in the phase space by means of the Wigner function. The modification of the usual general relativity description by the Ho$\check{\rm r}$ava-Lifshitz type gravity induces a new scenario for the origin of the Universe with an embryonic era where the Universe can exist classically before the tunneling process takes place and which gives rise to the current evolution of the Universe. The Wigner functions corresponding to the Hartle-Hawking, Vilenkin and Linde boundary conditions are obtained by means of numerical calculations. In particular three cases were studied for the potential of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation: tunneling barrier with and without embryonic era and when the potential barrier is not present. The quantum behavior of these three cases are analyzed using the Wigner function for the three boundary conditions considered., Comment: 34 pages, 18 figures (Figures, comments and references added. Typos corrected)

The Robertson -- Schr\"{o}dinger, Heisenberg -- Robertson and Trifonov uncertainty relations for arbitrary two functions $f_{1}$ and $f_{2}$ depending on the quantum phase and the number of photons respectively, are given. Intelligent states and states which minimize locally the product of uncertainties $(\Delta f_{1})^{2}\cdot (\Delta f_{2})^{2}$ or the sum $(\Delta f_{1})^{2}+(\Delta f_{2})^{2}$ are investigated for the cases $f_{1}=\phi,\exp{(i\phi)}, \exp{(-i\phi)}, \cos{\phi}, \sin{\phi}$ and $f_{2}=n$., Comment: 32 pages

By wrapping D3-branes over 3-cycles on a half-flat manifold we construct an effective supersymmetric black hole in the N=2 low-energy theory in four-dimensions. Specifically we find that the torsion cycles present in a half-flat compactification, corresponding to the mirror symmetric image of electric NS flux on a Calabi-Yau manifold, manifest in the half-flat black hole as quantum hair. We compute the electric and magnetic charges related to the quantum hair, and also the mass contribution to the effective black hole. We find that by wrapping a number of D3-branes equal to the order of the discrete group associated to the torsional part of the half-flat homology, the effective charge and mass terms vanishes. We compute the variation of entropy and the corresponding temperature associated with the lost of quantum hair. We also comment on the equivalence between canceling Freed-Witten anomaly and the assumption of self-duality for the 5-form field strength. Finally from a K-theoretical perspective, we compute the presence of discrete RR charge of D-branes wrapping torsional cycles in a half-flat manifold., Comment: 23 pages, no figures. (v2) Typos corrected, references added

Consider a manifold endowed with the action of a Lie group. We study the relation between the cohomology of the Cartan complex and the equivariant cohomology by using the equivariant De Rham complex developed by Getzler, and we show that the cohomology of the Cartan complex lies on the 0-th row of the second page of a spectral sequence converging to the equivariant cohomology. We use this result to generalize a result of Witten on the equivalence of absence of anomalies in gauge WZW actions on compact Lie groups to the existence of equivariant extension of the WZW term, to the case on which the gauge group is the special linear group with real coefficients., Comment: 14 pages, revised version. To appear in the Proceedings of the Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Mathematics Department at CINVESTAV Mexico

The Jones-Witten invariants can be generalized for non-singular smooth vector fields with invariant probability measure on 3-manifolds, giving rise to new invariants of dynamical systems [22]. After a short survey of cohomological field theory for Yang-Mills fields, Donaldson-Witten invariants are generalized to four-dimensional manifolds with non-singular smooth flows generated by homologically non-trivial p-vector fields. These invariants have the information of the flows and they are interpreted as the intersection number of these flow orbits and constitute invariants of smooth four-manifolds admitting global flows. We study the case of Kahler manifolds by using the Witten's consideration of the strong coupling dynamics of N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories. The whole construction is performed by implementing the notion of higher dimensional asymptotic cycles a la Schwartzman [18]. In the process Seiberg-Witten invariants are also described within this context. Finally, we give an interpretation of our asymptotic observables of 4-manifolds in the context of string theory with flows., Comment: 34 pages, no figures

Deformation quantization is applied to quantize gravitational systems coupled with matter. This quantization procedure is performed explicitly for quantum cosmology of these systems in a flat minisuper(phase)space. The procedure is employed in a quantum string minisuperspace corresponding to an axion-dilaton system in an isotropic FRW Universe. The Wheeler-DeWitt-Moyal equation is obtained and its corresponding Wigner function is given analytically in terms of Meijer's functions. Finally, this Wigner functions is used to extract physical information of the system., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the VIII Mexican Workshop on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics

The deformation quantization formalism is applied to the linearized gravitational field. Standard aspects of this formalism are worked out before the ground state Wigner functional is obtained. Finally, the propagator for the graviton is also discussed within the context of this formalism., Comment: 18 pages, no figures

Recent studies of the $AdS_4/CFT_3$ correspondence involve the construction of a peculiar supersymmetric gauge theory on the worldvolume of multiple M2s branes as a boundary field theory. Under suitable conditions the quantum theory becomes a noncommutative supersymmetric YM-CS gauge theory which call for an study of its renormalized perturbative corrections. As a preliminary step to more general consideration, the modification of the ${\cal N}=3,2,1$ supersymmetric YM-CS gauge theory due to noncommutativity of spatial coordinates is proposed. We carry out the one-loop renormalization and a noncommutative correction for the Chern-Simons coefficient is obtained. Finally it is found that this new correction depends of the noncommutative parameter in an analytic form., Comment: 25 pages, 23 eps figures

Spin precession for an EPR pair of spin-1/2 particles in equatorial orbits around a Kerr-Newman black hole is studied. Hovering observers are introduced to ensure fixed reference frames in order to perform the Wigner rotation. These observers also guarantee a reliable direction to compare spin states in rotating black holes. The velocity of the particle due frame-dragging is explicitly incorporated by addition of velocities with respect the hovering observers and the corresponding spin precession angle is computed. The spin-singlet state is observed to be mixed with the spin-triplet by dynamical and gravity effects, thus it is found that a perfect anti-correlation of entangled states for these observers is deteriorated. Finally, an analysis concerning the different limit cases of parameters of spin precession including the frame-dragging effects is carried out., Comment: 25+1 pages, 7 eps figures. Major changes were made through all the manuscript. Clarifications regarding modifications were introduced through the draft. Figures were changed and reduced in number. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:quant-ph/0307114

The Weyl-Wigner-Groenewold-Moyal formalism of deformation quantization is applied to cosmological models in the minisuperspace. The quantization procedure is performed explicitly for quantum cosmology in a flat minisuperspace. The de Sitter cosmological model is worked out in detail and the computation of the Wigner functions for the Hartle-Hawking, Vilenkin and Linde wave functions are done numerically. The Wigner function is analytically calculated for the Kantowski-Sachs model in (non)commutative quantum cosmology and for string cosmology with dilaton exponential potential. Finally, baby universes solutions are described in this context and the Wigner function is obtained., Comment: 37 pages, 16 figures

Some recent studies of the AdS/CFT correspondence for condensed matter systems involve the Fermi liquid theory as a boundary field theory. Adding B-flux to the boundary D-branes leads in a certain limit to the noncommutative Fermi liquid, which calls for a field theory description of its critical behavior. As a preliminary step to more general consideration, the modification of the Landau's Fermi liquid theory due to noncommutativity of spatial coordinates is studied in this paper. We carry out the renormalization of interactions at tree level and one loop in a weakly coupled fermion system in two spatial dimensions. Channels ZS, ZS' and BCS are discussed in detail. It is shown that while the Gaussian fixed point remains unchanged, the BCS instability is modified due to the space non-commutativity., Comment: 27 pages, 2 figures, section 3.2 and conclusions were changed

The problem of computing systematically the gauge invariant extension of WZW term through equivariant cohomology is addressed. The analysis done by Witten in the two-dimensional case is extended to the four-dimensional ones. While Cartan's model is used to find the anomaly cancelation condition. It is shown that the Weil model is more appropriated to find the gauge invariant extension of the WZW term. In the process we point out that Weil's and Cartan's models are also useful to stress some connections with the abelian anomaly., Comment: 10 pages, no figures

We show how the reduced (anti-)self-dual Yang-Mills equations in seven dimensions described by the Nahm equations can be carried over to the Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formalism. In the process some new solutions for the cases of gauge groups SU(2) and SL(2,R) are explicitly obtained., Comment: 16+1 pages, LaTeX, no figures

Linking numbers in higher dimensions and their generalization including gauge fields are studied in the context of BF theories. The linking numbers associated to $n$-manifolds with smooth flows generated by divergence-free p-vector fields, endowed with an invariant flow measure are computed in different cases. They constitute invariants of smooth dynamical systems (for non-singular flows) and generalizes previous results for the 3-dimensional case. In particular, they generalizes to higher dimensions the Arnold's asymptotic Hopf invariant for the three-dimensional case. This invariant is generalized by a twisting with a non-abelian gauge connection. The computation of the asymptotic Jones-Witten invariants for flows is naturally extended to dimension n=2p+1. Finally we give a possible interpretation and implementation of these issues in the context of string theory., Comment: 21+1 pages, LaTeX, no figures

The Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formalism for Dirac second class constrained systems has been proposed recently as the deformation quantization of Dirac bracket. In this paper, after a brief review of this formalism, it is applied to the case of the relativistic free particle. Within this context, the Stratonovich-Weyl quantizer, Weyl correspondence, Moyal $\star$-product and Wigner function in the constrained phase space are obtained. The recent Hamiltonian treatment for constrained systems, whose constraints depend explicitly on time, are used to perform the deformation quantization of the relativistic free charged particle in an arbitrary electromagnetic background. Finally, the system consisting of a charged particle interacting with a dynamical Maxwell field is quantized in this context., Comment: 43 pages, no figures, harmac file

We discuss some possible implications of a two-dimensional toy model for black hole evaporation in noncommutative field theory. While the noncommutativity we consider does not affect gravity, it can play an important role in the dynamics of massless and Hermitian scalar fields in the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. We find that noncommutativity will affect the flux of outgoing particles and the nature of its UV/IR divergences. Moreover, we show that the noncommutative interaction does not affect Leahy's and Unruh's interpretation of thermal ingoing and outgoing fluxes in the black hole evaporation process. Thus, the noncommutative interaction still destroys the thermal nature of fluxes. In the process, some nonlocal implications of the noncommutativity are discussed., Comment: 33+1 pages, 3 eps figures, typos corrected, references added, figure 3 corrected, modifications in sections 4 and 6, version published in Phys. Rev. D

We start with a particular cosmological model derived from type IIB supergravity theory with fluxes, where usually the dilaton is interpreted as a Quintessence field. Instead of that, in this letter we interpret the dilaton as the dark matter of the universe. With this alternative interpretation we find that in this supergravity model gives a similar evolution and structure formation of the universe compared with the $\Lambda$CDM model in the linear regime of fluctuations of the structure formation. Some free parameters of the theory are fixed using the present cosmological observations. In the non-linear regimen there are some differences between the type IIB supergravity theory with the traditional CDM paradigm. The supergravity theory predicts the formation of galaxies earlier than the CDM and there is no density cusp in the center of galaxies. These differences can distinguish both models and can give a distinctive feature to the phenomenology of the cosmology coming from superstring theory with fluxes., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, references added, minor modifications, typos corrected. Version accepted for publication in IJMPA

In this paper we survey some of the relations between Plebanski description of self-dual gravity through the heavenly equations and the physics (and mathematics) of N=2 Strings. In particular we focus on the correspondence between the infinite hierarchy in the ground ring structure of BRST operators and its associated Boyer-Plebanski construction of infinite conserved quantities in self-dual gravity. We comment on ``Mirror Symmetry'' in these models and the large-N duality between topological N=4 gauge theories in two dimensions and topological gravity in four dimensions. Finally D-branes in this context are briefly outlined., Comment: 19+1 pages, 3 figures, corrected types, added references and comments,to appear in the proceedings of the conference: Topics in Mathematical Physics, General Relativity, and Cosmology, On the Occasion of the 75th Birthday of Jerzy F. Plebanski (2002). September 17-20, 2002; Cinvestav, Mexico City

Gravitational axial and chiral anomalies in a noncommutative space are examined through the explicit perturbative computation of one-loop diagrams in various dimensions. The analysis depend on how gravity is coupled to noncommutative matter fields. Delbourgo-Salam computation of the gravitational axial anomaly contribution to the pion decay into two photons, is studied in detail in this context. In the process we show that the two-dimensional chiral pure gravitational anomaly does not receive noncommutative corrections. Pure gravitational chiral anomaly in 4k+2 dimensions with matter fields being chiral fermions of spin-1/2 and spin-3/2, is discussed and a noncommutative correction is found in both cases. Mixed anomalies are finally considered in both cases., Comment: 29+1 pages, harvmac file, no figures

Cohomological Yang-Mills theory is formulated on a noncommutative differentiable four manifold through the $\theta$-deformation of its corresponding BRST algebra. The resulting noncommutative field theory is a natural setting to define the $\theta$-deformation of Donaldson invariants and they are interpreted as a mapping between the Chevalley-Eilenberg homology of noncommutative spacetime and the Chevalley-Eilenberg cohomology of noncommutative moduli of instantons. In the process we find that in the weak coupling limit the quantum theory is localized at the moduli space of noncommutative instantons., Comment: 11+1 pages, revtex4, no figures

We examine the extension of the Klebanov-Witten gauge/gravity correspondence away from the low-energy conformal limit, to a duality involving the full, asymptotically Ricci-flat background describing three-branes on the conifold. After a discussion of the nature of this duality at the string theory level (prior to taking any limits), we concentrate on the intermediate-energy regime where excited string modes are negligible but the branes are still coupled to the bulk. Building upon previous work, we are able to characterize the effective D3-brane worldvolume action in this regime as an IR deformation of the Klebanov-Witten N=1 superconformal gauge theory by a specific dimension-eight operator. In addition, we compute the two-point functions of the operators dual to all partial waves of the dilaton on the conifold-three-brane background, and subject them to various checks., Comment: LaTeX 2e, 32 pages

RR fields in string backgrounds including orientifold planes and branes on top of them are classified by K-theory. Following the idea introduced in hep-th/0103183, we also classify such fluxes by cohomology. Both of them are compared through the Atiyah-Hirzebruch Spectral Sequence. Some new correlations between branes on orientifold planes $Op^\pm$ and obstructions to the existence of some branes are found. Finally, we find a topological condition that avoid the presence of global gauge anomalies in lower dimensional systems., Comment: 47 pages, latex, no figures. v4: Typos corrected, exposition improved. Main conclusions unchanged. To be published in Nuclear Physics B

We survey geometric quantization of finite dimensional affine Kahler manifolds. Its corresponding prequantization and the Berezin's deformation quantization formulation, as proposed by Cahen et al., is used to quantize their corresponding Kahler quotients. Equivariant formalism greatly facilitates the description., Comment: 10 pages, latex file, no figures, minor clarifications and misprints corrected, contribution to the Proceedings of the First Mexican Meeting on Mathematical and Experimental Physics, Mexico City

In the first part of this work we consider an unstable non-BPS Dp-\bar{Dp}-brane pair in Type II superstring theory. Turning on a background NS-NS B-field (constant and nonzero along two spatial directions), we show that the tachyon responsible for the unstability has a complex GMS solitonic solution, which is interpreted as the low energy remnant of the resulting D(p-2)-brane. In the second part, we apply these results to construct the noncommutative soliton analogous of Witten's superconducting string. This is done by considering the complex GMS soliton arising from the D3-\bar{D3}-brane annihilation in Type IIB superstring theory. In the presence of left-handed fermions, we apply the Weyl-Wigner-Moyal correspondence and the bosonization technique to show that this object behaves like a superconducting wire., Comment: 24+1 pages, harvmac file, no figures, corrected typos, major clarifications

Basics of some topics on perturbative and non-perturbative string theory are reviewed. After a mathematical survey of the Standard Model of particle physics and GUTs, the bosonic string kinematics for the free case and with interaction is described. The effective action of the bosonic string and the spectrum is also discussed. Five perturbative superstring theories and their spectra is briefly outlined. Calabi-Yau three-fold compactifications of heterotic strings and their relation to some four-dimensional physics are given. T-duality in closed and open strings are surveyed. D-brane definition is provided and some of their properties and applications to brane boxes configurations, in particular to the cube model are discussed. Finally, non-perturbative issues like S-duality, M-theory, F-theory and basics of their non-perturbative Calabi-Yau compactifications are considered., Comment: 49+1 pages, harvmac file, no figures

In these lectures we review the basic ideas of perturbative and non-perturbative string theory. On the non-perturbative side we give an introduction to D-branes and string duality. The elementary concepts of non-BPS branes and noncommutative gauge theories are also discussed., Comment: 37+1 pages, LaTeX file, no figures

Recently M. Kontsevich found a combinatorial formula defining a star-product of deformation quantization for any Poisson manifold. Kontsevich's formula has been reinterpreted physically as quantum correlation functions of a topological sigma model for open strings as well as in the context of D-branes in flat backgrounds with a Neveu-Schwarz B-field. Here the corresponding Kontsevich's formula for the dual of a Lie algebra is derived in terms of the formalism of D-branes on group manifolds. In particular we show that that formula is encoded at the two-point correlation functions of the Wess-Zumino-Witten effective theory with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The B-field entering in the formalism plays an important role in this derivation., Comment: 20 pages, harvmac file, no figures, corrected typos

The study of brane-antibrane configurations in string theory leads to the understanding of supersymmetric D$p$-branes as the bound states of higher dimensional branes. Configurations of pairs brane-antibrane do admit in a natural way their description in terms of K-theory. We analyze configurations of brane-antibrane at fixed point orbifold singularities in terms of equivariant K-theory as recently suggested by Witten. Type I and IIB fivebranes and small instantons on ALE singularities are described in K-theoretic terms and their relation to Kronheimer-Nakajima construction of instantons is also provided. Finally the D-brane charge formula is reexamined in this context., Comment: 32 pages, harvmac file, no figures, version to appear in Nucl.Phys.B

The space of solutions to the Hitchin equations on the dual torus with punctures determines the Higgs branch of certain impurity theories. An alternative description of this Higgs branch is provided, in terms of the proper deformation of Hitchin system with deformation parameter given by a $B$-field. For the dual torus minus the singular points we construct explicit solutions to the B-deformed Hitchin equations by reducing them to principal chiral model equations and then using deformation quantization methods., Comment: 10 pages, harvmac file, no figures, added references

Matrix theory compactifications on tori have associated Yang-Mills theories on the dual tori with sixteen supercharges. A noncommutative description of these Yang-Mills theories based in deformation quantization theory is provided. We show that this framework allows a natural generalization of the `Moyal B-deformation' of the Yang-Mills theories to non-constant background B-fields on curved spaces. This generalization is described through Fedosov's geometry of deformation quantization., Comment: 25 pages, harvmac file, no figures, corrected typos, added references, one comment added in sec. 4

A geometric formulation of the Moyal deformation for the Self-dual Yang-Mills theory and the Chiral Model approach to Self-dual gravity is given. We find in Fedosov's geometrical construction of deformation quantization the natural geometrical framework associated to the Moyal deformation of Self-dual gravity., Comment: LaTeX, mprocl.sty, 3 pages, no figures, version to appear in the Eighth Marcel Grossmann Meeting

A geometric formulation of the Moyal deformation for the Self-dual Yang-Mills theory and the Chiral Model approach to Self-dual gravity is given. We find in Fedosov's geometrical construction of deformation quantization the natural geometrical framework associated to the Moyal deformation of the six-dimensional version of the second heavenly equation and the Park-Husain heavenly equation. The Wess-Zumino-Witten-like Lagrangian of Self-dual gravity is re-examined within this context., Comment: 35 pages, phyzzx file, no figures, some coefficiets of Lagrangians were corrected

We show how the reduced Self-dual Yang-Mills theory described by the Nahm equations can be carried over to the Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formalism employed recently in Self-dual gravity. Evidence of the existence of correspondence between BPS magnetic monopoles and space-time hyper-K\"ahler metrics is given., Comment: 21 pages, phyzzx file, no figures, version to appear in Phys. Lett. A

Weyl-Wigner-Moyal formalism is used to describe the large-$N$ limit of reduced SU$(N)$ quenching gauge theory. Moyal deformation of Schild-Eguchi action is obtained., Comment: 24 pages, phyzzx file, no figures, version to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. A

It is shown how some results on harmonic maps within the chiral model can be carried over to self-dual gravity. The WZW-like action for self-dual gravity is found., Comment: 22 pages, Phyzzx, no figures, few minor text changes

The two-dimensional non-linear sigma model approach to Self-dual Yang-Mills theory and to Self-dual gravity given by Q-Han Park is an example of the deep interplay between two and four dimensional physics. In particular, Husain's two-dimensional chiral model approach to Self-dual gravity is studied. We show that the infinite hierarchy of conservation laws associated to the Husain model carries implicitly a hidden infinite Hopf algebra structure., Comment: 19, Phyzzx, no figures, major revisions and changes in the above version