Little string theory at a TeV

We propose a framework where the string scale as well as all compact dimens ions are at the electroweak scale similar to TeV-1. The weakness of gravity is attributed to the small value of the string coupling g(s) similar to 10 (-16), presumably a remnant of the dilaton's runaway behavior, suggesting t he possibility of a common solution to the hierarchy and dilaton-runaway pr oblems. In spite of the small gs, in type-II string theories with gauge int eractions localized in the vicinity of NS5-branes, the standard model gauge couplings are of order one and are associated with the sizes of compact di mensions. At a TeV these theories exhibit higher dimensional and stringy be havior. The models are holographically dual to a higher dimensional non-cri tical string theory and this can be used to compute the experimentally acce ssible spectrum and self-couplings of the little strings. In spite of the s tringy behavior, gravity remains weak and can be ignored at collider energi es. The Damour-Polyakov mechanism is an automatic consequence of our scenar io and suggests the presence of a massless conformally-coupled scalar, lead ing to potentially observable deviations from Einstein's theory, including violations of the equivalence principle.