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String theory has emerged over the last decades as a leading candidate for the description of
quantum gravity and the fundamental interactions of Nature. Despite its successes, our current
lack of understanding of the gauge symmetry principle underlying string theory stands in the way
of giving a complete definition of the theory. Various arguments suggest that string theory
possesses a vast gauge symmetry which mixes excitations of different spins, and which is
spontaneously broken in the Minkowski vacuum. It is of great importance to find a formulation of
the theory in its most symmetric phase, and this will be one of the goals of this project. Aided by
insights from holographic duality, we aim to elucidate the symmetries and gauge-invariant
interactions in this phase. Another goal is to use insights from string field theory and conformal
field theory to address fundamental symmetries and universal behaviour in nature. Often such
descriptions have relevance to the field of condensed matter physics, for example.
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