Related papers: Singular Geometry and Higgs Bundles in String Theo…
This presentation is intended to give a flavour of the physics to be studied and discovered by exploiting the interface between string theory, M-theory and field theory provided by the dynamics of extended objects called `branes', and their…
String theory and supersymmetry are theoretical ideas that go beyond the standard model of particle physics and show promise for unifying all forces. After a brief introduction to supersymmetry, we discuss the prospects for its experimental…
We take advantage of the principal bundle geometry of the space of connections to obtain general results on the presymplectic structure of two classes of (pure) gauge theories: invariant theories, and non-invariant theories satisfying two…
From the quantum field theory point of view, matter and gauge fields are generally expected to be localised around branes or topological defects occurring in extra dimensions. Here I discuss a simple scenario where, by starting with a five…
A brief review of the status of duality symmetries in string theory is presented. The evidence is accumulating rapidly that an enormous group of duality symmetries, including perturbative T dualities and non-perturbative S-dualities,…
A popular way to study N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories is to realize them geometrically in string theory, as suspended brane constructions, D-branes wrapping cycles in Calabi-Yau manifolds, orbifolds, and otherwise. Among the applications…
Considering a compact Riemann surface of genus greater than two, a Higgs~bundle is a pair composed of a holomorphic bundle over the Riemann surface, joint with an auxiliar vector field, so-called Higgs field. This theory started around…
A recent attempt to extend the geometric Langlands duality to affine Kac-Moody groups, has led Braverman and Finkelberg [arXiv:0711.2083] to conjecture a mathematical relation between the intersection cohomology of the moduli space of…
I investigate two discrete models of random geometries, namely simplicial quantum gravity and quantum string theory. In four-dimensional simplicial quantum gravity, I show that the addition of matter gauge fields to the model is capable of…
These are notes of a series of lectures on mirror symmetry and topological string theory given at the Mathematical Sciences Center at Tsinghua University. The N=2 superconformal algebra, its deformations and its chiral ring are reviewed. A…
We describe a class of supersymmetric unified models with the following properties: i) the full breaking of the gauge group is achieved by Higgs fields in the fundamental representation; ii) the correct unification of the strong and…
The underlying mathematical structures of gauge theories are known to be geometrical in nature and the local and global features of this geometry have been studied for a long time in mathematics under the name of fibre bundles. It is now…
The concept of gauge theories progressively emerged during the 20th century while the building of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. This work focusses on some aspects of gauge theories. First, a modern interpretation of Maxwell's…
We explore gauge fields - strings duality by means of the loop equations and the zigzag symmetry. The results are striking and incomplete. Striking - because we find that the string ansatz proposed in [A.M. Polyakov, hep-th/9711002]…
We consider classical gauge theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking on a principal bundle $P\to X$ whose structure group $G$ is reducible to a closed subgroup $H$, and sections of the quotient bundle $P/H\to X$ are treated as classical…
Higgs fields are attributes of classical gauge theory on a principal bundle $P\to X$ whose structure Lie group $G$ if is reducible to a closed subgroup $H$. They are represented by sections of the quotient bundle $P/H\to X$. A problem lies…
In these lectures we review how some of the recent developments in string theory are closely related to generic properties of supersymmetry. Lectures given at the Nato Advanced Study Institute on "Strings, Branes and Dualities", Cargese,…
Gravitation theory is formulated as gauge theory on natural bundles with spontaneous symmetry breaking where gauge symmetries are general covariant transformations, gauge fields are general linear connections, and Higgs fields are…
The gauge symmetries that underlie string theory arise from inner automorphisms of the algebra of observables of the associated conformal field theory. In this way it is possible to study broken and unbroken symmetries on the same footing,…
The past few years have witnessed a remarkable crossover of string theoretical ideas from the abstract world of geometrical forms to the concrete experimental realm of condensed matter physics. The basis for this --- variously known as…