Related papers: Seeing through the String Landscape - a String Hun…
Matrix string theory is equivalent to type IIA superstring theory in the light-cone gauge, together with extra degrees of freedom representing D-brane states. It is therefore the appropriate framework in which to study systems of multiple…
This short note emphasises a potential tension between string models of inflation based on systems of branes and antibranes and the spectrum of strings in curved space, in particular the requirement that the leading Regge trajectory extends…
We review recent progress in the study of non-rational (boundary) conformal field theories and their applications to describe exact holographic backgrounds in superstring theory. We focus mainly on the example of the supersymmetric coset…
These lectures intend to give a pedagogical introduction into some of the developments in string theory during the last years. They include perturbative T-duality and non perturbative S- and U-dualities, their unavoidable demand for…
Intersecting D-brane models provide an attractive explanation of family replication in the context of string theory. We show, however, that the localization of fermion families at different brane intersections in the extra dimensions…
We point out that models where gauge and charged matter fields live on the world volume of D3 branes can provide a weak string coupling description of the gauge coupling unification in the supersymmetric standard model at a scale of order…
In the recent years a lot of attention is focused on unconventional string compactifications. A variety of different but related frameworks was developed in order to address issues such as duality invariance, non-geometry and…
We investigate a static, cylindrically symmetric cosmic string on the brane without a perturbative approximation. We find there could be a (large) enhancement of the (effective) string tension when the energy density at the center of the…
The cylinder diagrams that determine the static interactions between pairs of Dp-branes in the type IIB plane wave background are evaluated. The resulting expressions are elegant generalizations of the flat-space formulae that depend on the…
We derive fully covariant expressions for disk scattering amplitudes of any two massless closed strings in which mixed Neumann and Dirichlet world-sheet boundary conditions are included. From the two-point amplitudes, we derive the long…
Within two specific string cosmology scenarios --differing in the way the pre- and post-big bang phases are joined-- we compute the size and spectral slope of various types of cosmologically amplified quantum fluctuations that arise in…
We investigate two classes of D-branes in 2-d string theory, corresponding to extended and localized branes, respectively. We compute the string emission during tachyon condensation and reinterpret the results within the $c=1$ matrix model.…
The cosmological constant and electroweak hierarchy problem have been a great inspiration for research. Nevertheless, the resolution of these two naturalness problems remains mysterious from the perspective of a low-energy effective field…
We discuss the worldvolume description of intersecting D-branes, including the metric on the moduli space of deformations. We impose a choice of static gauge that treats all the branes on an equal footing and describes the intersection of…
Intersecting D-brane models and their T-dual magnetic compactifications yield attractive models of particle physics where magnetic flux plays a twofold role, being the source of fermion chirality as well as supersymmetry breaking. A…
We study the objects (called spectral branes or S-branes) which are obtained by imposing non-local spectral boundary conditions at the boundary of the world sheet of the bosonic string. They possess many nice properties which make them an…
We study the collision of a highly energetic light closed string off a stack of Dp-branes at (sub)string-scale impact parameters and in a regime justifying a perturbative treatment. Unlike at larger impact parameters - where elastic…
This presentation is intended to give a flavour of the physics to be studied and discovered by exploiting the interface between string theory, M-theory and field theory provided by the dynamics of extended objects called `branes', and their…
We review the recent developments in our understanding of non-BPS states and branes in string theory. The topics include 1) construction of unstable non-BPS D-branes in type IIA and type IIB string theories, 2) construction of stable…
If the vacuum manifold of a field theory has the appropriate topological structure, the theory admits topological structures analogous to the D-branes of string theory, in which defects of one dimension terminate on other defects of higher…