Related papers: Gravitational couplings in ${\cal N}=2$ string com…
We attempt to find a rigorous formulation for the massive type IIA orientifold compactifications of string theory introduced in hep-th/0505160. An approximate double T-duality converts this background into IIA string theory on a twisted…
Superstring theories are the most promising theories for unified description of all fundamental interactions including gravity. However, these theories are formulated consistently only in 10 spacetime dimensions. Therefore, to connect to…
We show that type I string theory compactified in four dimensions in the presence of constant internal magnetic fields possesses N=1 supersymmetric vacua, in which all Kahler class and complex structure closed string moduli are fixed.…
We extend the dictionary between the BPS spectrum of Heterotic strings and the one of F-/M-theory compactifications on $K3$ fibered Calabi-Yau 3-folds to cases with higher rank non-Abelian gauge groups and in particular to dual pairs…
Non-vanishing fluxes in M-theory and string theory compactifications induce a superpotential in the lower dimensional theory. Gukov has conjectured the explicit form of this superpotential. We check this conjecture for the heterotic string…
In this thesis we study string compactifications on manifolds equipped with a $G$-structure, placing a special emphasis on the interplay between geometry and physics. We follow two complementary approaches. In the first part of the thesis…
We analyze the U-duality group for the case of a type II superstring compactified to four dimensions on a K3 surface times a torus. The various limits of this theory are considered which have interpretations as type IIA and IIB…
In these lectures, we review the main properties of the topological theory obtained by twisting the N=2 two-dimensional superconformal algebra, associated to supersymmetric string compactifications. In particular, we describe a set of…
We study large dimensions and low string scale in four-dimensional compactifications of type II theories of closed strings at weak coupling. We find that the fundamental string scale, together with all compact dimensions, can be at the TeV,…
We consider the torus compactifications with flux of a class of $6d$ $(1,0)$ SCFTs that can be engineered as the low-energy theories on M$5$-branes near an M$9$-plane on a $C^2/Z_2$ singularity. Specifically, we concentrate on the two SCFTs…
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…
The low-energy effective theories describing string compactifications in the presence of fluxes are so-called gauged supergravities: deformations of the standard abelian supergravity theories. The deformation parameters can be identified…
The simplest string theory compactifications to 3D with 16 supercharges -- the heterotic string on $T^7$, and type II strings on $K3 \times T^3$ -- are related by U-duality, and share a moduli space of vacua parametrized by $O(8,24;…
We consider an eleven dimensional supergravity compactified on $K3\times T^2$ and show that the resulting five dimensional theory has identical massless states as that of heterotic string compactified on a specific five torus $T^5$. The…
We study the weak gravity conjecture, the swampland distance conjecture and the emergence proposal for $\mathcal{N}=1$ orientifold compactifications of type IIB string theory with O3-/O7-planes. We allow for orientifold projections with…
We utilise the duality between M theory and Type IIA string theory to show the existence of Freund-Rubin compactifications of M theory on 7-manifolds with singularities supporting chiral fermions. This leads to a concrete way to study…
In this paper I will further investigate the spectrum of quantum gravity or string theories at large number of dimensions. We will see that volumes of certain orbifolds shrink at large D. It follows that the mass spectra of the leading…
We show that the number of half-supersymmetric p-branes in the Type II theories compactified on orbifolds is determined by the wrapping rules recently introduced, provided that one accounts correctly for both geometric and non-geometric…
We consider manifolds with special holonomy groups SU(3), G2 and Spin(7) as suitable for compactification of superstrings, M-theory and F-theory (with only one time) respectively. The relations of these groups with the octonions are…
Extracting reliable low-energy information from string compactifications notoriously requires a detailed understanding of the UV sensitivity of the corresponding effective field theories. Despite past efforts in computing perturbative…