This group's focus is on the computation and analysis of low-energy effective actions.

At present there are very good quantum descriptions of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions between elementary particles.

One of the biggest open problems in modern theoretical physics is to find a consistent quantum theory of all four of the fundamental interactions, including the gravitational interaction. Superstring theories are promising candidates for such a unified description of the fundamental interactions.

Direct experimental tests of superstring theory would require energies vastly in excess of those available in present and planned particle accelerators. However, an underlying superstring theory will lead to indirect consequences at experimentally accessible energies.

These indirect effects are coded in low-energy effective actions, which are supersymmetric quantum field theories for the light degrees of freedom in superstring theories.