Related papers: Axions in the Landscape and String Theory
This Ph.D. thesis investigates effective field and string theories in which supersymmetry is realized and broken in various ways. Chapter 1 addresses effective theories with nonlinearly realized supersymmetry, constructed using the…
Recently there has been much interest in the spatial distribution of light scalar dark matter, especially axions, throughout the universe. When the local gravitational interactions between the scalar modes are sufficiently rapid, it can…
By shining a hypermultiplet from one side of the bulk of a flat five-dimensional orbifold, supersymmetry can be broken by boundary conditions. The extra dimension is stabilized in a supersymmetric way, and by computing the four-dimensional…
A number of proposed and ongoing experiments search for axion dark matter with a mass nearing the limit set by small scale structure (${\cal O} ( 10 ^{ - 21 } {\rm eV} ) $). We consider the late universe cosmology of these models, showing…
Attempts to solve Yang-Mills theory must eventually face the problem of analyzing the theory at intermediate values of the coupling constant. In this regime neither perturbation theory nor the gravity dual are adequate, and one must…
Axions have for some time been considered a plausible candidate for dark matter. They can be produced through misalignment, but it has been argued that when inflation occurs before a Peccei-Quinn transition, appreciable production can…
In our previous work, we found new types of the cosmic string solutions in the Abelian-Higgs model with an enhanced $U(1)$ global symmetry. We dubbed those solutions as the compensated/uncompensated strings. The compensated string is…
We posit the existence of the Marshland within string theory. This region is the boundary between the landscape of consistent low-energy limits of quantum gravity, and the swampland of theories that cannot be embedded within string theory…
We conjecture a general upper bound on the strength of gravity relative to gauge forces in quantum gravity. This implies, in particular, that in a four-dimensional theory with gravity and a U(1) gauge field with gauge coupling g, there is a…
Spacetime supersymmetry is widely believed to play an important role in most fundamental theories of physics, and is usually invoked in order to address problems of naturalness. In this paper, we examine the question of whether…
In this review I discuss various aspects of some of the recently constructed black hole and soliton solutions in string theory. I begin with the axionic instanton and related solutions of bosonic and heterotic string theory. The latter…
The effects of possible explicit violation of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry responsible for the solution of the strong CP problem are studied in supersymmetric models. It is shown that automatic models with an abelian $U(1)$ gauge symmetry are…
Moduli are generic in string (M) theory. In a large class of gauge-mediated Supersymmetry breaking models, the fermionic components of such fields have very light masses, around the eV scale, and non-negligible mixing with active neutrinos,…
A longstanding question in superstring/$M$ theory is does it predict supersymmetry below the string scale? We formulate and discuss a necessary condition for this to be true; this is the mathematical conjecture that all stable, compact…
This is a pedagogical review article surveying the various approaches towards understanding gauge coupling unification within string theory. As is well known, one of the major problems confronting string phenomenology has been an apparent…
Recently there has been a surge of new experimental proposals to search for ultra-light axion dark matter with axion mass, $m_a\lesssim1\,\mu$eV. Many of these proposals search for small oscillating magnetic fields induced in or around a…
We consider the low energy phenomenology of superstrings. In particular we analyse supersymmetry breaking via gaugino condensate and we compare the phenomenology of the two different approaches to stabilize the dilaton field. We study the…
A generic low-energy prediction of string theory is the existence of a large collection of axions, commonly known as a string axiverse. Axions also have a natural cosmological production mechanism, vacuum misalignment, making them…
We discuss the problem of consistent description of higher spin massive fields coupled to external gravity. As an example we consider massive field of spin 2 in arbitrary gravitational field. Consistency requires the theory to have the same…
Explicit supersymmetry breaking is studied in higher dimensional theories by having boundaries respect only a subgroup of the bulk symmetry. If the boundary symmetry is the maximal subgroup allowed by the boundary conditions imposed on the…