Related papers: Cosmological and phenomenological consequences of …
The current description of fundamental interactions is based on two theories with the status of standard models. The electromagnetic and nuclear interactions are described at a quantum level by the Standard Model of particle physics, using…
A review of the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters and the $\mu$ term arising in superstring models is performed paying special attention to their phenomenological implications. In particular, the violation of the scalar mass…
We investigate moduli field dynamics in supergravity/M-theory like set ups where we turn on fluxes along some or all of the extra dimensions. As has been argued in the context of string theory, we observe that the fluxes tend to stabilize…
Sequestering is a promising mechanism in 4D string models to reconcile high-scale inflation with low-energy supersymmetry. In this scenario the MSSM lives on branes at singularities and it is sequestered from the sources of supersymmetry…
Recent cosmological observations of unprecented accuracy, by WMAP in particular, have established a `Standard Model' of cosmology, just as LEP established the Standard Model of particle physics. Both Standard Models raise open questions…
We investigate the effects of cosmological expansion on the spectrum of small-scale structure on a cosmic string. We simulate the evolution of a string with two modes that differ in wavelength by one order of magnitude. Once the short mode…
A consistent theoretical description of physics at high energies requires an assessment of vacuum stability in either the Standard Model or any extension of it. Especially supersymmetric extensions allow for several vacua and the choice of…
Theories of the cosmological constant fall into two classes, those in which the vacuum energy is fixed by the fundamental theory and those in which it is adjustable in some way. For each class we discuss key challenges. The string theory…
There is evidence that string theory possesses a large discretuum of stable and/or metastable ground states, with zero or four supersymmetries in four dimensions. I discuss critically the nature of this evidence. Assuming this "landscape"…
Supersymmetry and Grand Unification are the two most promising directions for physics beyond the Standard Model. They receive indirect experimental support from the apparent lightness of the Higgs boson, the values of the gauge couplings…
We review recent progress in string cosmology, where string dualities are applied so as to obtain complete cosmological evolutions, free of any essential singularities. Two classes of models are analyzed. The first class consists of string…
A string in four dimensions is constructed by supplementing it with forty four Majorana fermions. The central charge is 26. The fermions are grouped in such a way that the resulting action is supersymmetric. The energy momentum and current…
We study cosmic strings in the complex symmetron model, a scalar-tensor theory with a spontaneously broken local $U(1)$ symmetry in low matter density regions. Using numerical simulations, we show that these strings preferentially attach to…
We consider new cosmological solutions with a collapsing, an intermediate and an expanding phase. The boundary between the expanding (collapsing) phase and the intermediate phase is seen by comoving observers as a cosmological past (future)…
This is a broad-brush review of how string theory addresses several important questions of gravitational physics. The problem of non-renormalizability is first reviewed, followed by introduction of string theory as an ultraviolet-finite…
The existence of non-singular string cosmologies is established in a class of two-dimensional supersymmetric Hybrid models at finite temperature. The left-moving sector of the Hybrid models gives rise to 16 real (N_4=4) spacetime…
Main objective of the present dissertation is the investigation for all the possible low energy models which emerge in four dimensions by the dimensional reduction of a gauge theory over multiple connected coset spaces. The higher…
Four-dimensional string theories predict in general the existence of light exotic particles with fractional electric charges. Such particles could escape present observations if they are confined by a gauge group of the "hidden" sector into…
If supersymmetry turns out to be a symmetry of nature at low energies, the first order of business to measure the soft breaking parameters. But one will also want to understand the symmetry, and its breaking, more microscopically. Two…
We investigate bulk moduli stabilisation and supersymmetry breaking in local string/F-theory models where the Standard Model is supported on a del Pezzo surface or singularity. Computing the gravity mediated soft terms on the Standard Model…