String and string-inspired phenomenology

Abstract

In these lectures I review the progress made over the last few years in the subject of string and string-inspired phenomenology. I take a practical approach, thereby concentrating more on explicit examples rather than on formal developments. Topics covered include: introduction to string theory, the free-fermionic formulation and its general features, generic conformal field theory properties, $SU(5)\times U(1)$ GUT and string model-building, supersymmetry breaking, the bottom-up approach to string-inspired models, radiative electroweak symmetry breaking, the determination of the allowed parameter space of supergravity models and the experimental constraints on this class of models, and prospects for direct and indirect tests of string-inspired models. (Lectures delivered at the XXII ITEP International Winter School of Physics, Moscow, Russia, February 22 -- March 2, 1994)