The statistics of string/M theory vacua

Abstract

We discuss systematic approaches to the classification of string/M theory vacua, and physical questions this might help us resolve. To this end, we initiate the study of ensembles of effective lagrangians, which can be used to precisely study the predictive power of string theory, and in simple examples can lead to universality results. Using these ideas, we outline an approach to estimating the number of vacua of string/M theory which can realize the Standard Model. © SISSA/ISAS 2003.