Related papers: Supersymmetric Flux Compactifications and Calabi-Y…
We revisit moduli stabilization on Calabi-Yau manifolds with a discrete symmetry. Invariant fluxes allow for a truncation to a symmetric locus in complex structure moduli space and hence drastically reduce the moduli stabilization problem…
We review recent work which has significantly sharpened our geometric understanding and interpretation of the moduli space of certain $N$=2 superconformal field theories. This has resolved some important issues in mirror symmetry and has…
In this paper we investigate the properties of series of vacua in the string theory landscape. In particular, we study minima to the flux potential in type IIB compactifications on the mirror quintic. Using geometric transitions, we embed…
Making use of non-perturbative U-duality symmetries of type II strings we construct new `superstring' vacua in three dimensions with N=1 supersymmetry. This has an interpretation as compactifying formally from 13 dimensions (S-theory) on…
The period geometry of Calabi-Yau $n$-folds, characterised by their variations of Hodge structure governed by Griffiths transversality, a graded Frobenius algebra, an integral monodromy and an intriguing arithmetic structure, is analysed…
We construct, as hypersurfaces in toric varieties, Calabi-Yau manifolds corresponding to F-theory vacua dual to E8*E8 heterotic strings compactified to six dimensions on K3 surfaces with non-semisimple gauge backgrounds. These vacua were…
This article represents the author's PhD thesis which is focused on moduli stabilisation in type IIB Calabi-Yau flux compactifications and its applications to cosmology. I derive the topological conditions on an arbitrary Calabi-Yau to give…
We study moduli stabilization for type IIB orientifolds compactified on Calabi-Yau threefolds in the region close to conifold singularities in the complex structure moduli space. The form of the periods implies new phenomena like…
We consider the type II superstring compactified on Calabi-Yau threefolds at finite temperature. The latter is implemented at the string level by a free action on the Euclidean time circle. We show that all Kahler and complex structure…
This review talk focusses on some of the interesting developments in the area of superstring compactification that have occurred in the last couple of years. These include the discovery that ``mirror symmetric" pairs of Calabi--Yau spaces,…
In four-dimensional F-theory compactifications with N=1 supersymmetry the fields describing the dynamics of space-time filling 7-branes are part of the complex structure moduli space of the internal Calabi-Yau fourfold. We explicitly…
In the context of four-dimensional ${\cal N} = 1$ type IIB superstring compactifications, the U-dual completion of the holomorphic flux superpotential leads to four S-dual pairs of fluxes, namely $(F, H), (Q, P), (P', Q')$ and $(H', F')$.…
We consider flux compactifications of type IIB string theory and F-theory in which the respective superpotentials at large complex structure are dominated by cubic or quartic terms in the complex structure moduli. In this limit, the…
We describe a method for finding flux vacua of type IIB string theory in which the Gukov-Vafa-Witten superpotential is exponentially small. We present an example with $W_0 \approx 2 \times 10^{-8}$ on an orientifold of a Calabi-Yau…
We study the vacuum structure of compactifications of type II string theories on orientifolds with SU(3)xSU(3) structure. We argue that generalised geometry enables us to treat these non-geometric compactifications using a supergravity…
We study a class of flux compactifications that have all the moduli stabilised, a high (GUT) string scale and a low (TeV) gravitino mass that is generated dynamically. These non-geometric compactifications correspond to type II string…
We study the cosmological evolution of the volume moduli in a class of recently proposed Inflationary Universe models arising out of Type IIB string theory, where a number of the moduli fields have been stabilised through flux…
We propose the first examples of scale-separated vacua with extended supersymmetry. They arise as circle compactifications of four-dimensional vacua of massive type IIA supergravity with scale separation, upon introducing additional fluxes…
We construct compactifications of type IIB string theory that yield, at leading order in the $\alpha^\prime$ and $g_s$ expansions, de Sitter vacua of the form envisioned by Kachru, Kallosh, Linde, and Trivedi. We specify explicit Calabi-Yau…
We compute the spectra of the Hessian matrix, ${\cal H}$, and the matrix ${\cal M}$ that governs the critical point equation of the low-energy effective supergravity, as a function of the complex structure and axio-dilaton moduli space in…