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Brane tilings provide the most general framework in string and M-theory for matching toric Calabi-Yau singularities probed by branes with superconformal fixed points of quiver gauge theories. The brane tiling data consists of a bipartite…
I explain two applications of the relationship between four dimensional N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories, zero dimensional gauged matrix models, and geometric transitions in string theory. The first is related to the spectrum of BPS domain…
We study the classical geometry associated to fractional D3-branes of type IIB string theory on R^4/Z_2 which provide the gravitational dual for N=2 super Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. As one can expect from the lack of conformal…
Type IIB superstring models with the standard model gauge group on D3-branes and with massless matter associated with open strings joining D3-branes to D3-branes or D3-branes to ${\rm D}7_3$-branes are studied. Models with gauge coupling…
We present a simple example of a supersymmetric attractor mechanism in the purely open string context of D-branes embedded in curved space-time. Our example involves a class of D3-branes embedded in the 2-charge D1-D5 background of type IIB…
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…
We study D-branes that preserve a diagonal SL(2) affine Lie algebra in string theory on AdS_3. We find three classes of solutions, corresponding to the following representations of SL(2): (1) degenerate, finite dimensional representations…
We compute the annulus diagram corresponding to the interaction of a fractional D3 brane with a gauge field on its world-volume and a stack of N fractional D3 branes on the orbifolds C^2 /Z_2 and C^3/Z_2 x Z_2. We show that its logarithmic…
Starting from the bosonic part of N=2 Super QCD with a 'Seiberg-Witten' N=2 breaking mass term, we obtain string BPS conditions for arbitrary semi-simple gauge groups. We show that the vacuum structure is compatible with a symmetry breaking…
In this PhD thesis the low energy effective actions for D-branes and the M5-brane are used to analyze the dynamics of brane probes moving in the geometry created by diverse supergravity backgrounds. It begins with an introduction to string…
We study BPS-saturated classical solutions for the world-sheet theory of a D-string in the presence of a point charge. These solutions are interpreted as describing planar 3-string junctions, which arise because the original D-string is…
We investigate the anomalous creation of fundamental strings using the boundary state formalism of fractional D-branes on ALE spaces in the orbifold limit. The open string Witten index plays a crucial role in this calculation and so the…
We propose a string-theoretic ansatz describing the dynamics of SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in the limit of large N in D=4. The construction uses in a crucial way open-string vertex operators that describe non-perturbative brane dynamics.…
We investigate a recently identified class of six-dimensional supergravities without tensor multiplets whose primitive BPS strings are described by a rational superconformal field theory. Rationality imposes severe constraints on the…
The properties of brane-antibrane systems and systems of unstable D-branes in Type II superstring theory are investigated using the formalism of superconnections. The low-energy open string dynamics is shown to be probed by generalized…
The recently found non-critical open string theories is reviewed. These open strings, noncommutative open string theories (NCOS), arise as consistent quantum theories describing the low energy theory of D-branes in a background electric…
We review some recent results on the extension of the gauge/gravity correspondence to include matter in the fundamental representation by adding D-branes to the supergravity backgrounds. Working in the quenched approximation, in which the…
It has been shown that membranes and fivebranes are wave-like or monopole-like solutions in some higher dimensional theory. Here the picture is completed by combining the wave and monopole solutions into a single solution of Exceptional…
The BPS spectrum of string theory on AdS$_3\times {\rm S}^3 \times {\rm S}^3 \times {\rm S}^1$ is determined using a world-sheet description in terms of WZW models. It is found that the theory only has BPS states with $j^+ = j^-$ where…
D3-branes are often a necessary ingredient in global compactifications of F-theory. In minimal realizations of flavor hierarchies in F-theory GUT models, suitable fluxes are turned on, which in turn attract D3-branes to the Yukawa points.…