Related papers: Standard Model Vacua for Two-dimensional Compactif…
We construct all axi-symmetric non-gradient $m$-quasi-Einstein structures on a two-sphere. This includes the spatial cross-section of the extreme Kerr black hole horizon corresponding to $m=2$, as well as a family of new regular metrics…
We derive the conditions for unbroken supersymmetry for a Mink_2, (2,0) vacuum, arising from Type II supergravity on a compact eight-dimensional manifold M_8. When specialized to internal manifolds enjoying SU(4)xSU(4) structure the…
Quantum vacua are characterized by the topological structure of their fermion zero modes. The vacua are distributed into universality classes protected by topology in momentum space. The vacua whose manifold of fermion zero modes has…
We study the dynamics of the size of an extra-dimensional manifold stabilised by fluxes. Inspecting the potential for the 4D field associated with this size (the radion), we obtain the conditions under which it can be stabilised and show…
We discuss the use of gauge fields to stabilize complex structure moduli in Calabi-Yau three-fold compactifications of heterotic string and M-theory. The requirement that the gauge fields in such models preserve supersymmetry leads to a…
Volume stabilization in models with flat extra dimension could follow from vacuum energy residing in the bulk when translational invariance is spontaneously broken. We study a simple toy model that exemplifies this mechanism which considers…
We present a comprehensive classification of supersymmetric vacua of M-theory compactification on seven-dimensional manifolds with general four-form fluxes. We analyze the cases where the resulting four-dimensional vacua have N = 1,2,3,4…
Understanding supersymmetric flux vacua is essential in order to connect string theory to observable physics. In this thesis, flux vacua are studied by making use of two mathematical frameworks: SU(n)-structures and generalised complex…
We consider the torus compactifications with flux of a class of $6d$ $(1,0)$ SCFTs that can be engineered as the low-energy theories on M$5$-branes near an M$9$-plane on a $C^2/Z_2$ singularity. Specifically, we concentrate on the two SCFTs…
We investigate the interrelation between topology and Narain T-duality of heterotic flux vacua. We present evidence that all 5 and 4-dimensional Minkowski space heterotic flux backgrounds with 8 supercharges have a locus in the moduli space…
Consistent reductions of higher-dimensional (matter-coupled) gravity theories on spheres have been constructed and classified in an important paper by Cveti\v{c}, L\"u and Pope. We close a gap in the classification and study the case when…
A consistent theoretical description of physics at high energies requires an assessment of vacuum stability in either the Standard Model or any extension of it. Especially supersymmetric extensions allow for several vacua and the choice of…
We present a quantum mechanical model of spherical supermembranes. Using superfields to represent the cartesian coordinates of the membrane, we are able to exactly determine its supersymmetric vacua. We find there are two classical vacua,…
In a six-dimensional gauge theory compactified on a torus with magnetic flux, translational symmetry in the extra dimensions is broken. As a result, a massless Nambu-Goldstone boson appears in the four-dimensional effective Lagrangian. We…
We discuss how the dual standard model and the dualised standard model are complementary theories. That is, how their implications have no overlap, whilst together they explain most features of the standard model. To illustrate how these…
We advocate a framework for constructing perturbative closed string compactifications which do not have large-radius limits. The idea is to augment the class of vacua which can be described as fibrations by enlarging the monodromy group…
We investigate the non-perturbative stability of supersymmetric compactifications with respect to decay via a bubble of nothing. We show examples where this kind of instability is not prohibited by the spin structure, i.e., periodicity of…
We investigate non-perturbative structures of the two-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric nonlinear sigma model on the quadric surface Q^{n-2}(C) = SO(n)/SO(n-2)xU(1), which is a Hermitian symmetric space, and therefore Kahler, by using the…
We study the possibility that the vacuum energy density of scalar and internal-space gauge fields arising from the process of dimensional reduction of higher dimensional gravity theories plays the role of quintessence. We show that, for the…
Type IIA flux compactifications with O6-planes have been argued from a four dimensional effective theory point of view to admit stable, moduli free solutions. We discuss in detail the ten dimensional description of such vacua and present…