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A new configuration of non-abelian D1-branes growing into D5-branes is found. This time the effect is triggered by a non-trivial electric field on the world-volume of the D1-branes and a constant RR 4-form potential. Based on the these…
The aim of this work is to analyze Kaehler moduli space monodromies of string compactifications. This is achieved by investigating the monodromy action upon D-brane probes, which we model in the Landau-Ginzburg phase in terms of matrix…
These are significantly expanded lecture notes for the author's minicourse at MSRI in June 2012, as published in the MSRI lecture note series, with some minor additional corrections. In these notes, we give an example-motivated review of…
This thesis investigates correspondences between open and closed strings. This is done on the level of coupled open-closed moduli spaces and from a string field theoretic point of view. The construction of boundary string field theory on…
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 give a unified description of all BPS states of M-theory compactified on $T^5$ in terms of the five-brane. We compute the mass spectrum and degeneracies and find that the $SO(5,5,Z)$ U-duality symmetry naturally arises as a T-duality by…
Motivated by their role in non-perturbative potentials in string theory, we study divisors in effective cones of Calabi-Yau threefolds. We give examples of geometries for which some divisor classes in the effective cone are not themselves…
The c-map relates classical hypermultiplet moduli spaces in compactifications of type II strings on a Calabi-Yau threefold to vector multiplet moduli spaces via a further compactification on a circle. We give an off-shell description of the…
This paper investigates the algebraic structure that exists on perturbative BPS-states in the superstring, compactified on the product of a circle and a Calabi-Yau fourfold. This structure was defined in a recent article by Harvey and…
The supporting worldsheet of a string, membrane, or other higher dimensional brane, is analysed in terms of its first, second, and third fundamental tensors, and its inner and outer curvature tensors. The dynamical equations governing the…
We compactify $M$-theory on a Calabi-Yau manifold to five dimensions by wrapping the membrane and fivebrane solitons of the eleven-dimensional supergravity limit around Calabi-Yau two-cycles and four-cycles respectively. We identify the…
We review and extend the progress made over the past few years in understanding the structure of toric quiver gauge theories; those which are induced on the world-volume of a stack of D3-branes placed at the tip of a toric Calabi-Yau cone,…
We consider, in flux compactification of heterotic string theory, spacetime-filling five-branes. Stabilizing the fivebrane involves minimizing the combined energy density of the tension and a Coulomb potential associated with an internal…
Scaling black holes are solutions of supergravity with multiple black hole singularities, which can be adiabatically connected to a single center black hole solution. We develop techniques to determine partition functions for such scaling…
String structures in degree four are associated with cancellation of anomalies of string theory in ten dimensions. Fivebrane structures in degree eight have recently been shown to be associated with cancellation of anomalies associated to…
We report on progress towards constructing string models incorporating both realistic D-brane matter content and moduli stabilisation with dynamical low-scale supersymmetry breaking. The general framework is that of local D-brane models…
We briefly review attempts to construct string theories that yield the standard model, concentrating on models with a geometric interpretation. Calabi-Yau compactifications are discussed in the context of both the weakly coupled heterotic…
We propose a construction of K\"ahler and non-K\"ahler Calabi-Yau manifolds by branched double covers of twistor spaces. In this construction we use the twistor spaces of four-manifolds with self-dual conformal structures, with the examples…
We study D-branes on Calabi-Yau manifolds, carrying charges which are torsion elements of the K-theory. Interesting physics ensues when we follow these branes into nongeometrical phases of the compactification. On the level of K-theory, we…
We discuss chiral supersymmetric compactifications of the SO(32) heterotic string on Calabi-Yau manifolds equipped with direct sums of stable bundles with structure group U(n). In addition we allow for non-perturbative heterotic…