Related papers: TASI lectures on complex structures

These are notes for four lectures on higher structures in M-theory as presented at workshops at the Erwin Schroedinger Institute and Tohoku University. The first lecture gives an overview of systems of multiple M5-branes and introduces the…

We describe a simple algorithm that computes the recently discovered brane tilings for a given generic toric singular Calabi-Yau threefold. This therefore gives AdS/CFT dual quiver gauge theories for D3-branes probing the given non-compact…

With a bird's-eye view, we survey the landscape of Calabi-Yau threefolds, compact and non-compact, smooth and singular. Emphasis will be placed on the algorithms and databases which have been established over the years, and how they have…

The present Lecture Notes have been prepared to back up a series of a few seminars given by the author at the Albert Einstein Institute in Potsdam. These Notes aim at reviewing a research project conducted over the last six years about a…

These lectures provide an introduction to the microscopic description of branes in curved backgrounds. After a brief reminder of the flat space theory, the basic principles and techniques of (rational) boundary conformal field theory are…

We investigate field theories on the worldvolume of a D3-brane transverse to partial resolutions of a $\Z_3\times\Z_3$ Calabi-Yau threefold quotient singularity. We deduce the field content and lagrangian of such theories and present a…

We study non-supersymmetric orbifold singularities from the point of view of D-brane probes. We present a description of the decay of such singularities from considerations of the toric geometry of the probe branes.

This is a set of four lectures presented at the Theoretical Advanced Study Institute (TASI-09) in June 2009. The goal of the lectures is to introduce students to some of the basic ideas and tools required for theoretical analysis of…

Closed string tachyon condensation resolves the singularities of nonsupersymmetric orbifolds, however the resolved space typically has fewer D-brane charges than that of the orbifold. The description of the tachyon condensation process via…

Michel Talagrand played a decisive role in the transformation of mean-field spin glass theory into a rigorous mathematical subject. This chapter offers a narrative account of that development. We begin with the physical origins of the…

We study D-branes on Calabi-Yau threefolds, which are realized through the blowing up the singularity of orbifold. This D-branes are represented as sheaves, which can be stable or unstable, what is connected with the transition in the…

Recently, the first instance of a model of D-branes at Calabi-Yau singularities where supersymmetry is broken dynamically into stable vacua has been proposed. This construction was based on a system of $N$ regular and $M=1$ fractional…

We calculate the D-brane superpotentials for two non-Fermat type compact Calabi-Yau manifolds which are the hypersurfaces of the weighed projective spaces in type II string theory. By constructing the open-closed mirror maps, we also…

These notes review the D0-brane or Banks-Fischler-Shenker-Susskind (BFSS) matrix quantum mechanics from a post-AdS/CFT perspective. We start from the decoupling argument for D0-branes and discuss the gravity dual in the 't Hooft regime,…

The introduction of ``small permutations'' allows us to derive Ward-Takahashi identities for the spin-glass, in the Parisi limit of an infinite number of steps of replica symmetry breaking. The first identities express the emergence of a…

We formulate and study a class of massive N=2 supersymmetric gauge field theories coupled to boundary degrees of freedom on the strip. For some values of the parameters, the infrared limits of these theories can be interpreted as open…

The AdS/CFT correspondence for N=1 Super conformal field theories suggests that dibaryon operators are dual to D-brane states that are point like in AdS and that wrap various cycles in a Sasaki-Einstein manifold. It also suggests that the…

We study the recently proposed crystal model for three dimensional superconformal field theories arising from M2-branes probing toric Calabi-Yau four-fold singularities. We explain the algorithms mapping a toric Calabi-Yau to a crystal and…

In recent work N. Hitchin introduced the concept of "generalised geometry". The key feature of generalised structures is that that they can be acted on by both diffeomorphisms and 2-forms, the so-called $B$-fields. In this lecture, we give…

With model building applications in mind, we collect and develop basic techniques to analyze the landscape of D7-branes in type IIB compact Calabi-Yau orientifolds, in three different pictures: F-theory, the D7 worldvolume theory and…