Related papers: Local Grand Unification and String Theory
The structure of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics points toward grand unified theories (GUTs) where strong and electroweak interactions are unified in a non-Abelian GUT group. The spontaneous breaking of the GUT symmetry to the…
Axions, grand unification, and string theory are each compelling extensions of the Standard Model. We show that combining these frameworks imposes strong constraints on the QCD axion mass. Using unitarity arguments and explicit string…
The recent developments in string theory suggest that the space-time coordinates should be generalized to non-commuting matrices. Postulating this suggestion as the fundamental geometrical principle, we formulate a candidate for covariant…
Compactifications of heterotic string theory on Generalized Calabi-Yau manifolds have been expected to give the same type of flexibility that type IIB compactifications on Calabi-Yau orientifolds have. In this note we generalize the work…
We apply the Renormalisation Group Evolution (RGE) to analyze the phenomenological implications of an extended supersymmetric model, for the value of the unification scale and the strong coupling at the electroweak scale. The model we…
I report on recent numerical simulations of the simplest field theory with cosmic string solutions, the Abelian Higgs model. We find that random networks of string quickly converge to a scaling solution in which the network scale length…
It is shown how the topological string amplitudes encode the BPS structure of wrapped M2 branes in M-theory compactification on Calabi-Yau threefolds. This in turn is related to a twisted supersymmetric index in 5 dimensions which receives…
Natural inflation relies on the existence of an axion decay constant which is super-Planckian. In string theory only sub-Planckian axion decay constants have been found in any controlled regime. However in field theory it is possible to…
In the context of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), we discuss the introduction of exotic matter below the string scale $M_X$ in order to achieve gauge unification at $M_X$ (a constraint of a large class of string models).…
Landscape analyses often assume the existence of large numbers of fields, $N$, with all of the many couplings among these fields (subject to constraints such as local supersymmetry) selected independently and randomly from simple (say…
We study different phenomenological aspects of compact, D=4, N=1 Type IIB orientifolds considered as models for unification of the standard model and gravity. We discuss the structure of the compactification, string and unification scales…
To increase the predictivity of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), one needs to go to an underlying, more fundamental theory, where at least some of the many MSSM parameters can be determined by symmetries or by dynamics.…
The study of curved D-brane geometries in type II strings implies a general relation between local singularities $\cx W$ of Calabi-Yau manifolds and gravity free supersymmetric QFT's. The minimal supersymmetric case is described by F-theory…
In recent years it has been realized that in string/$M$ theories compactified to four dimensions which satisfy cosmological constraints, it is possible to make some generic predictions for particle physics and dark matter: a non-thermal…
In this opening talk I first describe how we are entering a data-rich era, and what clues we might soon have to physics beyond the SM (on a time scale of several years). Then we turn to a number of the basic issues we hope to explain, and…
A recently introduced framework for the compactification of supersymmetric string theory involving noncritical manifolds of complex dimension $2k+D_{crit}$, $k\geq 1$, is reviewed. These higher dimensional manifolds are spaces with…
Low-energy effective field theories arising from Calabi-Yau string compactifications are generically inconsistent or ill-defined at the classical level because of conifold singularities in the moduli space. It is shown, given a plausible…
The dynamics of superstring, supergravity and M theories and their compactifications are probed by studying the various perturbation theories that emerge in the strong and weak coupling limits for various directions in coupling constant…
We describe heterotic string and M-theory realizations of the Randall-Sundrum (RS) scenario with $\cx N=2$ and $\cx N=1$ supersymmetry in the bulk. Supersymmetry can be broken only on the world brane, a scenario that has been proposed to…
Low energy effective actions arising from string theory typically contain many scalar fields, some with a very complicated potential and others with no potential at all. The evolution of these scalars is of great interest. Their late time…