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Motivated by Ooguri and Vafa, we study superstrings in flat R^4 in a constant self-dual graviphoton background. The supergravity equations of motion are satisfied in this background which deforms the N=2 d=4 flat space super-Poincare…

In this thesis, the emerging field of higher gauge theory will be discussed, particularly in relation to problems arising in M-theory, such as selfdual strings and the so-called (2,0) theory. This thesis will begin with a Nahm-like…

Deformations of the original F-theory background are proposed. These lead to multiple new dualities and physical phenomena. We concentrate on one model where we let seven-branes wrap a multi-centered Taub-NUT space instead of R4. This…

SU(N_L) X SU(N_R) gauge theories are investigated as effective field theories on D_4 branes in type IIA string theory. The classical gauge configuration is shown to match quantitatively with a corresponding classical U(N_L) X U(N_R) gauge…

M5-branes wrapping a holomorphic curve in a Calabi-Yau manifold can be used to construct four-dimensional N=1 gauge theories. In this paper we will consider M5-brane configurations corresponding to N=2 theories broken to N=1 by a…

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…

Gauge/gravity dualities are investigated from the worldsheet point of view. In [arXiv:0706.1163] and [arXiv:0708.2463], a duality between 4d SYM and supergravity on AdS_5xS^5 has been partly explained by using an anisotropic scale…

We consider Type IIB 5-brane configurations for 5d rank 2 superconformal theories which are classified recently by geometry in arXiv:1801.04036. We propose all the 5-brane web diagrams for these rank 2 theories and show dualities between…

In this lecture we give an elementary introduction to the natural realization of non-perturbative N=2 quantum field theories as a low energy limit of classical string theory. We review a systematic construction of six, five, and four…

This is a pedagogical and extended version of the results published in Refs. [1,2] and presented by the authors in various talks during the last year. We discuss the type II D-branes (both regular and fractional) of the orbifold…

Metastable supersymmetry breaking configurations of D-branes and NS5-branes in string theory often owe their existence to classical gravitational interactions between the branes. We show that in the effective theory of the light fields,…

We solve the worldsheet theory describing the near-horizon dynamics of a D-string in the presence of a very large number N of D5-branes. The model is pre-geometric in the sense that the near-horizon worldsheet Lagrangian does not have…

We study the (p,q)5-brane dynamics from the viewpoint of Matrix string theory in the T-dualized ALE background. The most remarkable feature in the (p,q)5-brane is the existence of ``fractional string'', which appears as the instanton of…

The five dimensional theory compactified on $S^1$ with two ``branes'' (two domain walls) embedded in it is constructed, based on the field-theoretic mechanism to generate the ``brane''. Some light states localized in the ``brane'' appear in…

We study a deformation of N=4 Super-Yang-Mills theory by a dimension-5 vector operator. There is a simple nonlocal "dipole" field-theory that realizes this deformation. We present evidence that this theory is realized in the setting of…

We study supersymmetric SU(5) chiral gauge theories with 2 fields in the 10 representation, $2+N_F$ fields in the $\bar{5}$ representation and $N_F$ fields in the 5 representation, for $N_F=0,1,2$. With a suitable superpotential,…

We study a $D_p$-brane in a parallelizable NS-NS background. The article starts with a brief review of the non-associative deformation of $D$-brane worldvolume in presence of torsion \cite{cornalba}. We suggest an alternative form and…

We consider the anomalous dimension of a certain twist two operator in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. At strong coupling and large-N it is captured by the classical dynamics of a spinning D5-brane. The present calculation generalizes the…

We present new M2 and M5-brane solutions in M-theory based on transverse Gibbons-Hawking spaces. These solutions provide realizations of fully localized type IIA D2/D6 and NS5/D6 brane intersections. One novel feature of these solutions is…

We initiate a study of the holographic duals of a class of four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal field theories that are engineered by wrapping M5-branes on a sphere with an irregular puncture. These notably include the…