How Space-Times Emerge from the Superpoint

Abstract

We describe how the super Minkowski space-times relevant to string theory and M-theory, complete with their Lorentz metrics and spin structures, emerge from a much more elementary object: the superpoint. In the sense of higher structures, this comes from treating the superpoint as an object in a flavor of rational homotopy theory, and repeatedly constructing central extensions. We will fit this story into the larger picture of the brane bouquet of Fiorenza-Sati-Schreiber: string theories and membrane theories emerge from super Minkowski space-times in precisely the same way as the super Minkowski space-times themselves emerge from the superpoint. This note is adapted from a talk I gave at the Durham symposium Higher Structures in M-Theory.