A pedagogical and self-contained introduction to noncommutative quantum field theory is presented, with emphasis on those properties that are intimately tied to string theory and gravity. Topics covered include the Weyl-Wigner correspondence, noncommutative Feynman diagrams, UV/IR mixing, noncommutative Yang-Mills theory on infinite space and on the torus, Morita equivalences of noncommutative gauge theories, twisted reduced models, and an in-depth study of the gauge group of noncommutative Yang-Mills theory. Some of the more mathematical ideas and

Boundary conformal field theory is the suitable framework for a microscopic treatment of D-branes in arbitrary CFT backgrounds. In this work, we develop boundary deformation theory in order to study the changes of boundary conditions generated by marginal boundary fields. The deformation parameters may be regarded as continuous moduli of D-branes. We identify a large class of boundary fields which are shown to be truly marginal, and we derive closed formulas describing the associated deformations to all orders in perturbation theory. This allows us to study the global topology properties of the moduli space rather than local aspects only. As an example, we analyse in detail the moduli space of c = 1 theories, which displays various stringy phenomena.

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The geometry of D-branes can be probed by open string scattering. If the background carries a non-vanishing B-field, the world-volume becomes noncommutative. Here we explore the quantization of world-volume geometries in a curved background with non-zero Neveu-Schwarz 3-form field strength H = dB. Using exact and generally applicable methods from boundary conformal field theory, we study the example of open strings in the SU(2) Wess-Zumino-Witten model, and establish a relation with fuzzy spheres or certain (non-associative) deformations thereof. These findings could be of direct relevance for D-branes in the presence of Neveu-Schwarz 5-branes; more importantly, they provide insight into a completely new class of world-volume geometries.

We investigate the D-brane contents of asymmetric orbifolds. Using T-duality we find that the consistent description of open strings in asymmetric orbifolds requires to turn on background gauge fields on the D-branes. We derive the corresponding noncommutative geometry arising on such D-branes with mixed Neumann-Dirichlet boundary conditions directly by applying an asymmetric rotation to open strings with pure Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions. As a concrete application of our results we construct asymmetric type I vacua requiring open strings with mixed boundary conditions for tadpole cancellation. 03/2000

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We examine the structure of spacetime symmetries of toroidally compactified string theory within the framework of noncommutative geometry. Following a proposal of Fröhlich and Gawedzki, we describe the noncommutative string spacetime using a detailed algebraic construction of the vertex operator algebra. We show that the spacetime duality and discrete worldsheet symmetries of the string theory are a consequence of the existence of two independent Dirac operators, arising from the chiral structure of the conformal field theory. We demonstrate that these Dirac operators are also responsible for the emergence of ordinary classical spacetime as a low-energy limit of the string spacetime, and from this we establish a relationship between T-duality and changes of spin structure of the target space manifold. We study the automorphism group of the vertex operator algebra and show that spacetime duality is naturally a gauge symmetry in this formalism. We show that classical general covariance also becomes a gauge symmetry of the string spacetime. We explore some larger symmetries of the algebra in the context of a universal gauge group for string theory, and connect these symmetry groups with some of the algebraic structures which arise in the mathematical theory of vertex operator algebras, such as the Monster group. We also briefly describe how the classical topology of spacetime is modified by the string theory, and calculate the cohomology groups of the noncommutative spacetime. A self-contained, pedagogical introduction to the techniques of noncommmutative geometry is also included.

These notes contain a survey of some aspects of the theory of graded differential algebras and of noncommutative differential calculi as well as of some applications connected with physics. They also give a description of several new developments.

Abstract: Motivated by the representation of the super Virasoro constraints as generalized Dirac-Kähler constraints (d ±d † ) |ψ 〉 = 0 on loop space, examples of the most general continuous deformations d → e −W de W are considered which preserve the superconformal algebra at the level of Poisson brackets. The deformations which induce the massless NS and NS-NS backgrounds are exhibited. A further 2-form background is found, which is argued to be related to the RR 2-form. Hints for a manifest realization of S-duality in terms of an algebra isomorphism are discussed. Contents

In this follow-up of [4], where quantum isometry group of a noncommutative manifold has been defined, we explicitly compute such quantum groups for a number of classical as well as noncommutative manifolds including the spheres and the tori. It is also proved that the quantum isometry group of an isospectral deformation of a (classical or noncommutative) manifold is a suitable deformation of the quantum isometry group of the original (undeformed) manifold. 1