Worldsheet

String theory
Fundamental objects
String Brane D-brane
Perturbative theory
Bosonic Superstring Type I Type II (IIA / IIB) Heterotic (SO(32) · E8×E8)
Non-perturbative results
S-duality T-duality M-theory AdS/CFT correspondence
Phenomenology
Phenomenology Cosmology Landscape
Mathematics
Mirror symmetry Monstrous moonshine
Related concepts Conformal field theory Holographic principle Kaluza–Klein theory Quantum gravity Supergravity Supersymmetry Theory of everything Twistor string theory
Theorists Arkani-Hamed Banks Dijkgraaf Duff Fischler Gates Gliozzi Green Greene Gross Gubser Harvey Hořava Kaku Klebanov Kontsevich Maldacena Mandelstam Martinec Minwalla Moore Motl Nekrasov Neveu Olive Polchinski Polyakov Randall Ramond Rohm Scherk Schwarz Seiberg Sen Shenker Sơn Strominger Sundrum Susskind 't Hooft Townsend Vafa Veneziano E. Verlinde H. Verlinde Witten Yau Zaslow
History Glossary

In string theory, a worldsheet is a two-dimensional manifold which describes the embedding of a string in spacetime. The term was coined by Leonard Susskind around 1967 as a direct generalization of the world line concept for a point particle in special and general relativity.

The type of string, the geometry of the spacetime in which it propagates, and the presence of long-range background fields (such as gauge fields) are encoded in a conformal field theory defined on the worldsheet. For example, the bosonic string in 26-dimensional Minkowski space has a worldsheet conformal field theory consisting of 26 free scalar fields. Meanwhile, a superstring worldsheet theory in 10 dimensions consists of 10 free scalar fields and their fermionic superpartners.