Review of Large-N Duality
I’m always on the lookout for good review articles on various topic in string theory. For one thing, graduate students are always asking for them. For another, I find them useful for catching up on topics that I may not have been paying sufficiently close attention to.
It’s not often that I find one which is wholly satisfactory. Today, however, I get to sing the praises of Marcos Mariño’s Chern-Simons Theory and Topological Strings.
Marcos starts with a review of Chern-Simons Theory and topological string theory, and builds up to a review of Gopakumar and Vafa’s large-N duality, geometric transitions and the construction of the topological vertex.
All within a digestible 46 pages. Really a great read, about an imminently important subject. Highly recommended.