Related papers: String Phenomenology From a Worldsheet Perspective
We investigate the connections between four-dimensional, N=2 M-theory vacua constructed as orbifolds of type II, heterotic, and type I strings. All these models have the same massless spectrum, which contains an equal number of vector…
We review efforts in string model building, focusing on the heterotic orbifold compactifications. We survey how one can, starting from an explicit string theory, obtain models which resemble Nature. These models exhibit the standard model…
The experimental data of the past decade suggests that the quantum gravity vacuum should possess two key ingredients. The existence of three generations and their embedding in SO(10) representations. The Z2XZ2 orbifold of the heterotic…
We study the phenomenology of the strong-coupling limit of $E_8\times E_8$ heterotic string obtained from M-theory, using a Calabi-Yau compactification. After summarizing the standard embedding results, we concentrate on non-standard…
Phenomenological explorations of heterotic strings have conventionally focused primarily on the E8xE8 theory. We consider smooth compactifications of all three ten-dimensional heterotic theories to exhibit the many similarities between the…
We analyze the stability properties of a family of anti-de Sitter flux compactifications of the tachyon-free non-supersymmetric heterotic string in ten dimensions. In contrast with simpler such solutions, the solutions include two…
We study the space of open string effective field theories by combining the constraint of unitarity and monodromy relations for the four-point amplitude. The latter is a reflection of an underlying disk correlator with singularities at the…
The first part of this review tries to provide a self-contained view of supersymmetry breaking from the bottom-up perspective. We thus describe N=1 supersymmetry in four dimensions, the Standard Model and the MSSM, with emphasis on the…
A review of orbifold geometry is given, followed by a review of the construction of four-dimensional heterotic string models by compactification on a six-dimensional Z_3 orbifold. Particular attention is given to the details of the…
The heterotic--string models in the free fermionic formulation gave rise to some of the most realistic string models to date, which possess N=1 spacetime supersymmetry. Lack of evidence for supersymmetry at the LHC instigated recent…
We systematically develop the formalism necessary for ensuring that boundary conditions of flavon fields in extra dimensions are consistent with heterotic string theory. Having developed a set of consistency conditions on the boundary…
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…
The Standard Model is the low-energy limit of a microscopic theory which includes extra dimensions and new symmetries. A part of my thesis consisted in constructing a new class of models with two extra dimensions. We showed that these…
Motivated by recent developments connecting non-supersymmetric heterotic string theory to the theory of Topological Modular Forms (TMF), we show that the worldsheet theory with central charge $(17,\frac{3}{2})$ obtained by fibering the…
A brief discussion is presented assessing the achievements and challenges of string phenomenology: the subfield dedicated to study the potential for string theory to make contact with particle physics and cosmology. Building from the well…
We construct more dual pairs of type II-heterotic strings in four dimensions with $N=2,1$ spacetime supersymmetry. On the type II side the construction utilizes the various possible choices of K3 automorphisms with fixed points which…
We investigate orbifold and smooth Calabi-Yau compactifications of the non-supersymmetric heterotic SO(16)xSO(16) string. We focus on such Calabi-Yau backgrounds in order to recycle commonly employed techniques, like index theorems and…
Nonstandard parafermions are built and their central charges and dimensions are calculated. We then construct new N=2 superconformal field theories by tensoring the parafermions with a free boson. We study the spectrum and modular…
We study gauge theories which are associated with classical vacua of perturbative Type II string theory that allows for a conformal field theory description. We show that even if we compactify seven spatial dimensions (allowing for one…
This thesis is the discussion of heterotic and type I string phenomenology. The heterotic string model is based on the free--fermionic formalism. This is the first case where non--Abelian VEV's, as opposed to singlet VEV's are required for…