Related papers: Gravitational couplings in ${\cal N}=2$ string com…
Four-graviton couplings in the low energy effective action of type II string vacua compactified on tori are strongly constrained by supersymmetry and U-duality. While the $R^4$ and $D^4 R^4$ couplings are known exactly in terms of…
We propose a framework where the string scale as well as all compact dimensions are at the electroweak scale $\sim$ TeV$^{-1}$. The weakness of gravity is attributed to the small value of the string coupling $g_s \sim 10^{-16}$, presumably…
This article is the PhD thesis of the author. It is focused on Type II compactifications because of the potential for the construction of realistic MSSM-like compactifications. In particular we concentrate in Type IIB Calabi-Yau…
We study M and F theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau four-folds in the presence of non-trivial background flux. The geometry is warped and belongs to the class of p-brane metrics. We solve for the explicit warp factor in the orbifold…
We re-examine the question of heterotic - heterotic string duality in six dimensions and argue that the $E_8\times E_8$ heterotic string, compactified on $K3$ with equal instanton numbers in the two $E_8$'s, has a self-duality that inverts…
In this note, we study the Swampland Distance Conjecture in TCS $G_2$ manifold compactifications of M-theory. In particular, we are interested in testing a refined version -- the Emergent String Conjecture, in settings with 4d $N=1$…
We examine the role of global topological data associated to choices of holonomy for flat gauge fields in string compactification. Our study begins with perturbative string compactification on compact flat manifolds preserving 8…
F-theory compactifications on elliptically fibered Calabi--Yau threefolds yield consistent six-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=(1,0)$ supergravity theories, for which the cancellation of gravitational, gauge and mixed anomalies imposes non-trivial…
We extend the investigation of special toroidal compactifications of heterotic string theory for which the half-BPS states provide representations of subgroups of the Conway group. We also explore dual descriptions of these theories and…
A type IIA string compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold which admits a K3 fibration is believed to be equivalent to a heterotic string in four dimensions. We study cases where a Calabi-Yau manifold can have more than one such fibration…
Four-dimensional compactifications of string theory provide a controlled set of possible gauge representations accounting for BSM particles and dark sector components. In this review, constraints from perturbative Type II string…
In this paper we describe the heterotic dual of the type IIB theory compactified to four dimensions on a toroidal orientifold in the presence of fluxes. The type IIB background is most easily described in terms of an M-theory…
We study type II string vacua defined by torus compactifications accompanied by T-duality twists. We realize the string vacua, specifically, by means of the asymmetric orbifolding associated to the chiral reflections combined with a shift,…
We study the equivariant generalization of topological strings on toric manifolds, focusing in particular on defining the contributions of constant maps in the genus expansion of the partition function. This approach regularizes the…
We test the recently conjectured duality between $N=2$ supersymmetric type II and heterotic string models by analysing a class of higher dimensional interactions in the respective low-energy Lagrangians. These are $F$-terms of the form $F_g…
In this paper we study $T^2$ compactification of 6-dimensional massive type IIA supergravity in presence of Ramond-Ramond background fluxes. The resulting theory in four dimensions is shown to possess $SL(2,R)\times SL(2,R)\times O(4,20)$…
We analyse the r\^ole of approximate axionic shift symmetries in gravity-decoupling limits arising in type II Calabi-Yau compactifications. Associated with each shift symmetry there is an axionic string whose tension constrains the gradient…
After a short introduction to Matrix theory, we explain how can one generalize matrix models to describe toroidal compactifications of M-theory and the heterotic vacua with 16 supercharges. This allows us, for the first time in history, to…
We apply the standard approach of RG flow for the gauge couplings in N=1 D=4 Supergravity to show how to match its results with the heterotic $Z_3$ orbifold and Type IIB ${Z_3}$ orientifold-based models. Using only supergravity, anomaly…
We continue our study of heterotic compactifications on non-Kahler complex manifolds with torsion. We give further evidence of the consistency of the six-dimensional manifold presented earlier and discuss the anomaly cancellation and…