Related papers: Weak gravity (and other conjectures) with broken s…
The minimal embedding of the Standard Model in type I string theory is described. The SU(3) color and SU(2) weak interactions arise from two different collections of branes. The correct prediction of the weak angle is obtained for a string…
Analysis of string interactions indicates a weakening of gravity at the string length scale, thus avoiding black holes and their singularities.
The connection between Superstring theory and the low--energy world is analyzed. In particular, the soft Supersymmetry--breaking terms arising in Supergravity theories coming from Superstrings are computed. Several solutions proposed to…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture predicts that in quantum gravity there should exist overcharged states, that is states with charge larger than their mass. Extending this to large masses and charges, we are expecting similar overcharged…
We review the recent developments in superstrings. We start with a brief summary of various consistent superstring theories and discuss T-duality which necessarily leads to the presence of D-branes. The properties of D-branes are summarized…
In these lectures, two different aspects of brane world scenarios in 5d gravity or string theory are discussed. In the first two lectures, work on how warped compactifications of 5d gravity theories can change the guise of the hierarchy…
We combine old and new quantum field theoretic arguments to show that any theory of stable or metastable higher spin particles can be coupled to gravity only when the gravity sector has a stringy structure. Metastable higher spin particles,…
U-duality symmetry of M-theory and S and T-duality of string theory can be used to study various black branes solutions. We explore some aspect of this idea here. This symmetry can be used to get relations among various components of the…
Strong (sublattice or tower) formulations of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) imply that, if a weakly coupled gauge theory exists, a tower of charged particles drives the theory to strong coupling at an ultraviolet scale well below the…
If there is a single underlying "theory of everything" which in some limits of its "moduli space" reduces to the five weakly coupled string theories in 10D, and 11D SUGRA, then it is possible that all six of them have some common domain of…
In a recent paper, Ooguri and Vafa [arXiv:1610.04564] argued that a mild extension of the Weak Gravity conjecture\cite{weakgrav} led to the conclusion that the only models of quantum gravity in AdS space with "radius large compared to the…
"Brane Supersymmetry Breaking" is a peculiar string-scale mechanism that can unpair Bose and Fermi excitations in orientifold models. It results from the simultaneous presence, in the vacuum, of collections of D-branes and orientifolds that…
We prove a version of the Weak Gravity Conjecture for 6d F-theory or heterotic string compactifications with 8 supercharges. This sharpens our previous analysis by including massless scalar fields. The latter are known to modify the Weak…
We conjecture a general upper bound on the strength of gravity relative to gauge forces in quantum gravity. This implies, in particular, that in a four-dimensional theory with gravity and a U(1) gauge field with gauge coupling g, there is a…
We construct in the supergravity framework a relation between thermal chargeless non-extremal black three-branes and thermal Dirichlet branes-antibranes systems. We propose this relation as a possible explanation for the intriguing…
We explore the notion of approximate global symmetries in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. We show that a variety of conjectures about quantum gravity, including the weak gravity conjecture, the distance conjecture, and the…
We consider a braneworld scenario with a black brane parallel to our brane, aiming towards a Higgs phase of gravity in string theory. The existence of the black brane spontaneously breaks the Lorentz symmetry on our brane but preserves the…
This thesis investigates correspondences between open and closed strings. This is done on the level of coupled open-closed moduli spaces and from a string field theoretic point of view. The construction of boundary string field theory on…
We study the dynamics of gravitational lumps. By a lump, we mean a metric configuration that asymptotes to a flat space-time. Such lumps emerge in string theory as strong coupling descriptions of D-branes. We provide a physical argument…
We show that almost all string theories, including the bosonic string, the superstring and $W$-string theories, possess a twisted N=2 superconformal symmetry. This enables us to establish a connection between topological gravity and the…