Related papers: The Revival of (0,2) Linear Sigma Models
In the context of (0,2) gauged linear sigma models, we explore chains of perturbatively dual heterotic string compactifications. The notion of target space duality originates in non-geometric phases and can be used to generate distinct…
Compactification of the heterotic string on toroidal orbifolds is a promising set-up for the construction of realistic unified models of particle physics. The target space dynamics of such models, however, drives them slightly away from the…
In this Thesis we investigate properties of stability, rigidity and unitarity of the string landscape in ten and lower dimensions. The dissertation explores these aspects by intertwining a detailed analysis of string vacua, with and without…
In order to lift the continuous moduli space of string vacua, non-trivial fluxes may be the essential input. In this talk I summarize aspects of two approaches to compactifications in the presence of fluxes: (i) generalized Scherk-Schwarz…
Recent developments in string theory have reinforced the notion that the space of stable supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric string vacua fills out a ``landscape'' whose features are largely unknown. It is then hoped that progress in…
Recently, the infinitesimal moduli space of heterotic $G_2$ compactifications was described in supergravity and related to the cohomology of a target space differential. In this paper we identify the marginal deformations of the…
Classical gravitating field theories reduced to three dimensions admit manifest gauge invariances and hidden symmetries, which together make up the invariance group G of the theory. If this group is large enough, the target space is a…
A rich pattern of gauge symmetries is found in the moduli space of heterotic string toroidal compactifications, at fixed points of the T-duality transformations. We analyze this pattern for generic tori, and scrutinize in full detail…
This paper aims to shed light on what becomes of discrete torsion within heterotic orbifolds when they are resolved to smooth geometries. Gauged Linear Sigma Models (GLSMs) possessing (0,2) worldsheet supersymmetry are employed as…
The motivation for Calabi-Yau-like compactifications of the weakly coupled $E_8\otimes E_8$ heterotic string theory, its particle spectrum and the issue of dilaton stabilization are briefly reviewed. Modular invariant models for hidden…
It is argued that recent developments point to the existence of an AdS_3 x S^2 x T^5 holographic dual for the 2D CFT living on the worldsheet of N coincident heterotic strings in a T^5 compactification, which can in turn be described by an…
The Standard Model data suggests the realization of grand unification structures in nature, in particular that of SO(10). A class of string vacua that preserve the SO(10) embedding, are the three generation free fermion heterotic-string…
Heterotic string theory compactified on a K3 surface times T^2 is believed to be equivalent to type II string theory on a suitable Calabi-Yau threefold. In particular, it must share the same hypermultiplet moduli space. Building on the…
Motivated by the recently proposed bounds on the slow-roll parameters for scalar potentials arising from string/M-theory compactifications, a.k.a. the Refined de Sitter Swampland conjecture, we explore the sharpness of such constraints…
This is a review of the new manifestly spacetime-supersymmetric description of the superstring. The new description contains N=2 worldsheet supersymmetry, and is related by a field redefinition to the standard RNS description. It is…
Nonlinear sigma models on de Sitter background possess the same kind of derivative interactions as gravity, and show the same sorts of large spacetime logarithms in correlation functions and solutions to the effective field equations. It…
In this talk I summarize several recent results concerning the four-dimensional effective supergravity obtained using a Calabi-Yau compactification of the $E_8\times E_8$ heterotic string from M-theory. A simple macroscopic study is…
We review recent progress in embedding the supersymmetric standard model into string theory. We discuss how, with the incorporation of certain aspects of grand unification, a search strategy can be developed that allows to efficiently find…
In this paper we work out some basic results concerning heterotic string compactifications on stacks and, in particular, gerbes. A heterotic string compactification on a gerbe can be understood as, simultaneously, both a compactification on…
CHL compactifications are supersymmetry preserving orbifolds of any perturbatively renormalizable and ultraviolet finite ground state of the perturbative string theories: heterotic, type I, or type II, preserving 32, 16, 12, 8, 4, (or zero)…