Related papers: Mastering the Master Space
Solitonic brane cosmologies are found where the world-volume is curved due to the evolution of the dilaton field on the brane. In many cases, these may be related to the solitonic Dp- and M5-branes of string and M-theory. An…
Warped compactifications with branes provide a new approach to the hierarchy problem and generate a diversity of four-dimensional thresholds. We investigate the relationships between these scales, which fall into two classes. Geometrical…
A central role in recent investigations of the duality of F-theory and heterotic strings is played by the moduli of principal bundles, with various structure groups G, over an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau manifold on which the heterotic…
A class of supersymmetric gauge theories arising from M2-branes probing Calabi-Yau 4-folds which are cones over smooth toric Fano 3-folds is investigated. For each model, the toric data of the mesonic moduli space is derived using the…
Recent developments in string and M theory rely heavily on supersymmetry suggesting that a revival of superspace techniques in ten and eleven dimensions may be advantageous. Here we discuss three topics of current interest where superspace…
We analyze M theory fivebrane in order to study the moduli space of vacua of N=1 supersymmetric $Sp(N_c)$ gauge theories with $N_f$ flavors in four dimensions. We show how the N=2 Higgs branch can be encoded in M theory by studying the…
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 quest for unification of particles and fields and for reconciliation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity has led us to gauge theories, string theories, supersymmetry and higher-extended objects: membranes... Our spacetime is…
A popular way to study N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories is to realize them geometrically in string theory, as suspended brane constructions, D-branes wrapping cycles in Calabi-Yau manifolds, orbifolds, and otherwise. Among the applications…
We explore the dynamics of magnetized nonsupersymmetric D5-brane configurations on Calabi-Yau orientifolds with fluxes. We show that supergravity D-terms capture supersymmetry breaking effects predicted by more abstract Pi-stability…
We investigate a (0,2) gauge theory realized on the world volume of the type IIB D1-brane at the singular point of a Calabi-Yau fourfold. It is argued that the gauge anomaly can be canceled via coupling to the R-R chiral bosons in bulk IIB…
An S-fold has played an important role in constructing supersymmetric field theories with interesting features. It can be viewed as a type of AdS_4 solutions of Type IIB string theory where the fields in overlapping patches are glued by…
We discuss some aspects of the physics of branes in the presence of orientifolds and the corresponding worldvolume gauge dynamics. We show that at strong coupling orientifolds sometimes turn into bound states of orientifolds and branes, and…
We consider a class of super-conformal beta-deformed N=1 gauge theories dual to string theory on $AdS_5 \times X$ with fluxes, where $X$ is a deformed Sasaki-Einstein manifold. The supergravity backgrounds are explicit examples of…
We discuss a simple example of an F-theory compactification on a Calabi-Yau fourfold where background fluxes, together with nonperturbative effects from Euclidean D3 instantons and gauge dynamics on D7 branes, allow us to fix all closed and…
We initiate a systematic investigation of the space of 2+1 dimensional quiver gauge theories, emphasising a succinct "forward algorithm". Few "order parametres" are introduced such as the number of terms in the superpotential and the number…
We use F-theory to derive a general expression for the flux potential of type II compactifications with D7/D3 branes, including open string moduli and 2-form fluxes on the branes. Our main example is F-theory on K3 $\times$ K3 and its…
In certain regions of the moduli space of K3 and Calabi-Yau manifolds, D-branes wrapped on non-supersymmetric cycles may give rise to stable configurations. We show that in the orbifold limit, some of these stable configurations can be…
We review an approach for computing non-perturbative, exact superpotentials for Type II strings compactified on Calabi-Yau manifolds, with extra fluxes and D-branes on top. The method is based on an open string generalization of mirror…
We re-consider the self tuning idea in brane world models of finite volume. We notice that in a large class of self tuning models, the four dimensional physics is sensitive to the vacuum energy on the brane. In particular the…