Related papers: Symmetry Breaking in Six Dimensional Flux Compacti…
We study spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking in the framework of orbifold compactifcations of heterotic string theory. In particular we investigate the electroweak symmetry breakdown via the Higgs mechanism. Such a breakdown can be achieved…
We describe symmetry structure of a general singular theory (theory with constraints in the Hamiltonian formulation), and, in particular, we relate the structure of gauge transformations with the constraint structure. We show that any…
In this thesis we analyze the problem of symmetry breaking in models with extra dimensions compactified on orbifolds. In the first chapter we briefly review the main symmetry breaking mechanisms peculiar of extra dimensions such as the…
We present the supersymmetric completion of the M-theory free differential algebra resulting from a compactification to four dimensions on a twisted seven-torus with 4-form and 7-form fluxes turned on. The super--curvatures are given and…
Various aspects of low energy M theory compactified to four dimensions are considered. If the supersymmetry parameter is parallel in the unwarped metric, then supersymmetry requires that the warp factor is trivial, the background four-form…
A new mechanism for symmetry breaking is proposed which naturally avoids the constraints following from the usual theorems of symmetry breaking. In the context of super-symmetry, for example, the breaking may be consistent with a vanishing…
We review the gauge symmetry breaking mechanism due to orbifold projections in orbifold model building. We explicitly show the existence of a scale of breaking if such a symmetry breaking is due to freely-acting orbifold operators only,…
It is well-known that Scherk-Schwarz compactifications in string theory have a tachyon in the closed string spectrum appearing for a critical value of a compact radius. The tachyon can be removed by an appropriate orientifold projection in…
In this paper we investigate the consequences of imposing an SO(4) symmetry both on the scalar field and on spacetime prior to any spontaneous symmetry breakdown in the electroweak model. First we argue that the local electroweak gauge…
We discuss heterotic string theories in two dimensions with gauge groups Spin(24) and Spin(8) x E_8. After compactification the theories exhibit a rich spectrum of states with both winding and momentum. At special points some of these…
We consider 5 dimensional gauge theories where the 5th direction is compactified on the orbifold S^1/Z_2, and where the 5th components of the gauge bosons play the role of the Standard Model Higgs boson (gauge-Higgs unification). The gauge…
Explicit supersymmetry breaking is studied in higher dimensional theories by having boundaries respect only a subgroup of the bulk symmetry. If the boundary symmetry is the maximal subgroup allowed by the boundary conditions imposed on the…
The four dimensional gauged supergravities descending from non-geometric string compactifications involve a wide class of flux objects which are needed to make the theory invariant under duality transformations at the effective level.…
We investigate the construction of non-supersymmetric vacua in compactifications of heterotic string theory with intrinsic torsion and background fluxes. We do this by using the technique of domain-wall supersymmetry breaking (DWSB) that…
The first part of this review tries to provide a self-contained view of supersymmetry breaking from the bottom-up perspective. We thus describe N=1 supersymmetry in four dimensions, the Standard Model and the MSSM, with emphasis on the…
We construct a 6D supergravity theory which emerges as intermediate step in the compactification of the heterotic string to the supersymmetric standard model in four dimensions. The theory has N=2 supersymmetry and a gravitational sector…
The fibre bundle formalism inherent to the construction of non-abelian Kaluza-Klein theories is presented and its associated dimensional reduction process analysed: is performed the dimensional reduction of G-invariant matter and gauge…
We study string compactifications with sixteen supersymmetries. The moduli space for these compactifications becomes quite intricate in lower dimensions, partly because there are many different irreducible components. We focus primarily,…
We construct flux-stabilised IIB compactifications whose extra dimensions (EDs) have very different sizes, and use these to describe several vacua with a TeV string scale. Because we can access regimes where 2 dimensions are hierarchically…
We present a framework for grand unification in which the grand unified symmetry is broken spontaneously by strong gauge dynamics, and yet the physics at the unification scale is described by (weakly coupled) effective field theory. These…