N = 2 string amplitudes

Abstract

In physics, solvable models have played very important roles. Understanding a simple model in detail teaches us a lot about more complicated models in generic situations. Five years ago, C. Vafa and I found that the closed N = 2 string theory, that is a string theory with the N = 2 local supersymmetry on the worldsheet, is classically equivalent to the self-dual Einstein gravity in four spacetime dimensions. Thus this string theory is solvable at the classical level. More recently, we have examined the N = 2 string partition function for spacial compactifications, and computed it to all order in the string perturbation expansion. The fact that such computation is possible at all suggests that the N = 2 string theory is solvable even quantum mechanically.