Related papers: Singular Geometry and Higgs Bundles in String Theo…
I discuss several issues concerning the use of string models as unified theories of all interactions. After a short review of gauge coupling unification in the string context, I discuss possible motivations for the construction of $SU(5)$…
String theory still remains one of the promising candidates for a unification of the theory of gravity and quantum field theory. One of its essential parts is relativistic description of moving multi-dimensional objects called membranes (or…
In this paper, we introduce the notion of a super tangent bundle of a manifold, and extend the basic notions of differential geometry such as differential forms, exterior derivation, connection, metric and divergence on manifolds that…
Supersymmetry and Grand Unification are the two most promising directions for physics beyond the Standard Model. They receive indirect experimental support from the apparent lightness of the Higgs boson, the values of the gauge couplings…
We study how the microstates of BPS sectors in string theory are organized in the dual $U(N)$ gauge theory. The microstates take the form of a coherent sum of stacks of branes and their open/closed string excitations. We propose a…
We study elliptic fibrations by analyzing suitable deformations of the fibrations and vanishing cycles. We introduce geometric string junctions and describe some of their properties. We show how the structure of the geometric string…
The heterotic string theory, compactified to four dimensions, has been conjectured to have a duality symmetry (S duality) that transforms the dilaton nonlinearly. If valid, this symmetry could provide an important means of obtaining…
What is quantum geometry? This question is becoming a popular leitmotiv in theoretical physics and in mathematics. Conformal field theory may catch a glimpse of the right answer. We review global aspects of the geometry of conformal fields,…
We study brane recombination for supersymmetric configurations of intersecting branes in terms of the world-volume field theory. This field theory contains an impurity, corresponding to the degrees of freedom localized at the intersection.…
There are three complete plane geometries of constant curvature: spherical, Euclidean and hyperbolic geometry. We explain how a closed oriented surface can carry a geometry which locally looks like one of these. Focussing on the hyperbolic…
We show how enhanced gauge symmetry in type II string theory compactified on a Calabi--Yau threefold arises from singularities in the geometry of the target space. When the target space of the type IIA string acquires a genus $g$ curve $C$…
We will show how the study of randomly triangulated surfaces merges with the study of open/closed string dualities. In particular we will discuss the Conformal Field Theory which arises in the open string sector and its implications.
Horava--Witten M theory -- heterotic string duality poses special problems for the twisted sectors of heterotic orbifolds. In [1] we explained how in M theory the twisted states couple to gauge fields apparently living on M9 branes at both…
The role of gauge invariance is reconsidered by "deriving it without assuming it" within an autonomous approach to interactions of Standard Model particles. In this approach, the renormalizable interactions are purely constrained by quantum…
These lectures intend to give a pedagogical introduction into some of the developments in string theory during the last years. They include perturbative T-duality and non perturbative S- and U-dualities, their unavoidable demand for…
We study topologically trivial $G$-Higgs bundles over an elliptic curve $X$ when the structure group $G$ is a connected real form of a complex semisimple Lie group $G^{\mathbb{C}}$. We achieve a description of their (reduced) moduli space,…
We derive formulas for counting certain classes of vacua in the string/M theory landscape. We do so in the context of the moduli space of M-theory compactifications on singular manifolds with G_2 holonomy. Particularly, we count the numbers…
We develop a description of higher gauge theory with higher groupoids as gauge structure from first principles. This approach captures ordinary gauge theories and gauged sigma models as well as their categorifications on a very general…
Duality symmetries for strings moving in non-trivial spacetime backgrounds are analysed. It is shown that for backgrounds generated from WZW and coset CFT models such duality symmetries are exact to all orders in string perturbation theory.…
String theory provides one of the most deepest insights into quantum gravity. Its single most central and profound result is the gauge/gravity duality, i.e. the emergence of gravity from gauge theory. The two examples of M(atrix)-theory and…