On various aspects of extended objects

Abstract: This thesis concerns classical and quantum aspects of minimal manifolds embedded in flat Minkowski space. In particular, we study the Lie algebra of diffeomorphisms on 2 dimensional compact manifolds as well as discuss singularity formation for relativistic minimal surfaces in co-dimension one. We also present a new approach to the Lorentz anomaly in string theory based on operator product expansion. Finally, we consider the spectrum of a family of Schr\"odinger operators describing quantum minimal surfaces and provide bounds for the eigenvalues for finite $N$ as well as in the limit where N tends to infinity.