Little string theory at a TeV

We propose a framework where the string scale as well as all compactdimensions are at the electroweak scale $\sim$ TeV$^{-1}$. The weakness ofgravity is attributed to the small value of the string coupling $g_s \sim10^{-16}$, presumably a remnant of the dilaton's runaway behavior, suggestingthe possibility of a common solution to the hierarchy and dilaton-runawayproblems. In spite of the small $g_s$, in type II string theories with gaugeinteractions localized in the vicinity of NS5-branes, the standard model gaugecouplings are of order one and are associated with the sizes of compactdimensions. At a TeV these theories exhibit higher dimensional and stringybehavior. The models are holographically dual to a higher dimensionalnon-critical string theory and this can be used to compute the experimentallyaccessible spectrum and self-couplings of the little strings. In spite of thestringy behavior, gravity remains weak and can be ignored at collider energies.The Damour-Polyakov mechanism is an automatic consequence of our scenario andsuggests the presence of a massless conformally-coupled scalar, leading topotentially observable deviations from Einstein's theory, including violationsof the equivalence principle.Comment: 22 pages, harvmac, 2 figures; v2: additional refs. and discussion of the violation of the equivalence principl