Related papers: Off-shell M5 Brane, Perturbed Seiberg-Witten Theor…
M5-branes wrapping a holomorphic curve in a Calabi-Yau manifold can be used to construct four-dimensional N=1 gauge theories. In this paper we will consider M5-brane configurations corresponding to N=2 theories broken to N=1 by a…
We consider intersecting brane configurations realizing N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories broken to N=1 by multitrace superpotentials, and softly to N=0. We analyze, in the framework of M5-brane wrapping a curve, the supersymmetric vacua…
The effective action for five-dimensional heterotic M-theory in the presence of five-branes is systematically derived from Horava-Witten theory coupled to an M5-brane world-volume theory. This leads to a five-dimensional N=1 gauged…
In this informal review for non-specalists we discuss the construction of maximally supersymmetric gauge theories that arise on the worldvolumes branes in String Theory and M-Theory. Particular focus is made on the relatively recent…
The moduli space of vacua for the confining phase of N=1 $SO(N_c)$ supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions is analyzed by studying the M theory fivebrane. The type IIA brane configuration consists of a single NS5 brane, multiple…
We study metastable nonsupersymmetric configurations in type IIA string theory, obtained by suspending D4-branes and anti-D4-branes between holomorphically curved NS5's, which are related to those of hep-th/0610249 by T-duality. When the…
We obtain the leading order corrections to the effective action of an M5-brane wrapping a Riemann surface in the eleven-dimensional supergravity Omega-background. The result can be identified with the first order epsilon-deformation of the…
We present a systematic way for deriving a four-dimensional (4D) effective action of the five-dimensional (5D) orbifold supergravity respecting the N=1 {\it off-shell} structure. As an illustrating example, we derive a 4D effective theory…
We construct vacua of M-theory on S^1/Z_2 associated with Calabi-Yau three-folds. These vacua are appropriate for compactification to N=1 supersymmetry theories in both four and five dimensions. We allow for general E_8 x E_8 gauge bundles…
The fivebrane of M theory is used in order to study the moduli space of vacua of confining phase N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions. The supersymmetric vacua correspond to the condensation of massless monopoles and…
We present the intersecting brane configuration of type IIA string theory corresponding to the meta-stable nonsupersymmetric vacua in four dimensional N=1 supersymmetric SU(N_c) gauge theory with a symmetric flavor, a conjugate symmetric…
We study the moduli space of vacua of four dimensional N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories with the gauge groups $Sp(2 N_c)$, $SO(2 N_c)$ and $SO(2 N_c +1)$ using the M theory fivebrane. Higgs branches of the N=2 supersymmetric gauge…
We study the worldvolume supersymmetric gauge theory of M-branes probing backgrounds corresponding to wrapped M5-branes. In the case of M5-branes wrapping a 2-cycle in two-dimensional complex space, we use M2-brane probes to compute the BPS…
We study M theory fivebranes to understand the moduli space of vacua of N=1 supersymmetric SO(N_c) gauge theory with N_f flavors in four dimensions. We discuss how the various branches of this theory arise in the string/M theory brane…
In the first lecture, we derive the five-dimensional effective action of strongly coupled heterotic string theory for the complete (1,1) sector of the theory by performing a reduction, on a Calabi-Yau three-fold, of M-theory on S1/Z2. The…
Supersymmetry breaking via gaugino condensation is studied in vacua of heterotic M-theory with five-branes. We show that supersymmetry is still broken by a global mechanism and that the non-perturbative superpotential takes the standard…
In a recent paper [1] we showed that N=1 supersymmetric QCD in the presence of certain superpotential deformations has a rich landscape of supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric vacua. In this paper we embed this theory in string theory as a…
We study M-theory fivebranes wrapped on Special Lagrangian submanifolds ($\S_n$) in Calabi-Yau three- and fourfolds. When the M5 wraps a four-cycle, the resulting theory is a two-dimensional domain wall embedded in three-dimensional bulk…
String and membrane dynamics may be unified into a theory of 2+2 dimensional self-dual world-volumes living in a 10+2 dimensional target space. Some of the vacua of this M-theory are described by the N=(2,1) heterotic string, whose target…
We classify and construct all the smooth Kaluza-Klein reductions to ten dimensions of the M2- and M5-brane configurations which preserve some of the supersymmetry. In this way we obtain a wealth of new supersymmetric IIA backgrounds…