-theory branes and their interactions

In recent years there has been some progress in understanding how one might model the interactions of branes in M -theory despite not having a fundamental perturbative description. The goal of this review is to describe different approaches to M -theory branes and their interactions. This includes: a review of M -theory branes themselves and their properties; brane interactions; the self-dual string and its properties; the role of anomalies in learning about brane systems; the recent work of Basu and Harvey with subsequent developments; how these complementary approaches might fit together.