Related papers: Orientifolds and duality cascades: confinement bef…
We consider the asymmetric orbifold that is obtained by acting with T-duality on a 4-torus, together with a shift along an extra circle. The chiral algebra of the resulting theory has non-trivial outer automorphisms that act as permutations…
We study four dimensional $Z_2 \times Z_2$ (shift)-orientifolds in presence of internal magnetic fields and NS-NS $B$-field backgrounds, describing in some detail one explicit example with N=1 supersymmetry. These models are related by…
We use the method of stable degenerations to study the local geometry of Calabi-Yau fourfolds for F-theory compactifications dual to heterotic compactifications on a Calabi-Yau threefold with fivebranes wrapping holomorphic curves in the…
We review recent progress in the construction of four-dimensional vacua of Type II string theory and F-theory which yield the Standard Model of particle physics (SM) or extensions thereof. In Type II orientifold compactifications the SM…
We consider the compactification of the dual form of $N=1$ $D=10$ supergravity on a six-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold. An $N=1$ off-shell supergravity effective Lagrangian in four dimensions can be constructed in a dual version of the…
We present supersymmetry breaking four dimensional orientifolds of type IIA strings. The compact space is a torus times a four dimensional orbifold. The orientifold group reflects one direction in each torus. RR tadpoles are cancelled by…
We use rotation of one D-brane with respect to the other to reveal the hidden structure of D-branes in type-II theories. This is done by calculation of the interaction amplitude for two different parallel and angled branes. The analysis of…
Making use of the N=2 Liouville theory and world-sheet techniques, we study the properties of D-branes wrapped around vanishing SUSY cycles of singular Calabi-Yau n-folds (n=2,3,4). After constructing boundary states describing the wrapped…
We study the quantum volume of D-branes wrapped around various cycles in Calabi-Yau manifolds, as the manifold's moduli are varied. In particular, we focus on the behaviour of these D-branes near phase transitions between distinct low…
We prove that the open topological string partition function on a D-brane configuration in a Calabi-Yau manifold X takes the form of a closed topological string partition function on a different Calabi-Yau manifold X_b. This identification…
We develop computational tools for the tree-level superpotential of B-branes in Calabi-Yau orientifolds. Our method is based on a systematic implementation of the orientifold projection in the geometric approach of Aspinwall and Katz. In…
The low energy gauge theory living on D-branes probing a del Pezzo singularity of a non-compact Calabi-Yau manifold is not unique. In fact there is a large equivalence class of such gauge theories related by Seiberg duality. As a step…
The phase transitions are studied for the D-brane systems with multiple open-string moduli in terms of toric geometry: between the parallel D-brane phase corresponding to the Coulomb branch and the coincident phase corresponding to the…
We study the interplay between mass deformations and unoriented projections of super-conformal quiver gauge theories resulting from D3-branes at (toric) Calabi-Yau singularities. We focus on simple orbifold cases…
A low-energy background field solution is presented which describes several D-membranes oriented at angles with respect to one another. The mass and charge densities for this configuration are computed and found to saturate the BPS bound,…
We analyze the D-branes of a type IIB string theory on an orbifold singularity including the possibility of discrete torsion following the work of Douglas et al. First we prove some general results about the moduli space of a point…
We study D1-branes on the fourfold $\C^4/(\Z_2\times\Z_2\times\Z_2)$, in the presence of discrete torsion. Discrete torsion is incorporated in the gauge theory of the D1-branes by considering a projective representation of the finite group…
In this note we discuss D-branes on T^4/Z_2 using the boundary states formalism. Explicit formulas for the untwisted boundary states inherited from the underlying T^4 and twisted states corresponding to branes wrapping collapsed 2-cycles at…
We recast the phenomenon of duality cascades in terms of the Cartan matrix associated to the quiver gauge theories appearing in the cascade. In this language, Seiberg dualities for the different gauge factors correspond to Weyl reflections.…
We investigate the instanton effect due to D3 branes wrapping a four-cycle in a Calabi-Yau orientifold with D7 branes. We study the condition for the nonzero superpotentials from the D3 instantons. For that matter we work out the zero mode…