Related papers: The Octagon at large M

We describe local Calabi-Yau geometries with two isolated singularities at which systems of D3- and D7-branes are located, leading to chiral sectors corresponding to a semi-realistic visible sector and a hidden sector with dynamical…

We construct D=4 Type I vacua with massless content remarkably close to that of the standard model of particle physics. They are tachyon-free non-supersymmetric models which are obtained starting with a standard D=4, N=1 compact Type IIB…

The state of the art in D-brane model building is briefly reviewed, focusing on recent achievements in the construction of D=4 N = 1 type II string vacua with semi-realistic gauge sectors. Such progress relies on a better understanding of…

We study a system of D-branes localized near an intersection of Neveu-Schwarz fivebranes, that is known to exhibit a landscape of supersymmetric and (metastable) supersymmetry breaking vacua. We show that early universe cosmology drives it…

We study D-branes on Calabi-Yau manifolds, carrying charges which are torsion elements of the K-theory. Interesting physics ensues when we follow these branes into nongeometrical phases of the compactification. On the level of K-theory, we…

In this thesis we investigate some aspects of the dramatic consequences of supersymmetry breaking on string vacua. In particular, we focus on the issue of vacuum stability in ten-dimensional string models with broken, or without,…

In particle physics model building discrete symmetries are often invoked to forbid unwanted or dangerous couplings. A classical example is the R-parity of the MSSM, which guarantees the absence of dimension four baryon- and lepton-number…

We investigate a (0,2) gauge theory realized on the world volume of the type IIB D1-brane at the singular point of a Calabi-Yau fourfold. It is argued that the gauge anomaly can be canceled via coupling to the R-R chiral bosons in bulk IIB…

We prove that the open topological string partition function on a D-brane configuration in a Calabi-Yau manifold X takes the form of a closed topological string partition function on a different Calabi-Yau manifold X_b. This identification…

We give a concise geometric recipe for constructing D-brane gauge theories that exhibit metastable SUSY breaking. We present two simple examples in terms of branes at deformed CY singularities.

We study the existence of long-lived meta-stable supersymmetry breaking vacua in gauge theories with massless quarks, upon the addition of extra massive flavors. A simple realization is provided by a modified version of SQCD with N_{f,0} <…

We review recent progress in the construction of four-dimensional vacua of Type II string theory and F-theory which yield the Standard Model of particle physics (SM) or extensions thereof. In Type II orientifold compactifications the SM…

We review the idea of Pi-stability for B-type D-branes on a Calabi-Yau manifold. It is shown that the octahedral axiom from the theory of derived categories is an essential ingredient in the study of stability. Various examples in the…

In this paper we find examples of moduli stabilization and runaway behavior which can be treated exactly. This is shown for supersymmetric field theories which can be realized on the world volume of D-branes. From a geometric point of view,…

Considering complex $n$-dimension Calabi-Yau homogeneous hyper-surfaces $% \mathcal{H}_{n}$ with discrete torsion and using Berenstein and Leigh algebraic geometry method, we study Fractional D-branes that result from stringy resolution of…

We characterize the geometry produced by M5-branes wrapping a Special Lagrangian 3-cycle in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold. The presence of the brane replaces the the Calabi-Yau by a real manifold with an almost complex structure. We show that, in…

We compare two applications of the gauge/gravity correspondence to a non conformal gauge theory, based respectively on the study of D-branes wrapped on supersymmetric cycles and of fractional D-branes on orbifolds. We study two brane…

With model building applications in mind, we collect and develop basic techniques to analyze the landscape of D7-branes in type IIB compact Calabi-Yau orientifolds, in three different pictures: F-theory, the D7 worldvolume theory and…

D-branes on one-parameter Calabi-Yau spaces and two-parameter K3-fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds are analyzed from both the Gepner model point of view and the geometric perspective. We compute part of the spectrum of the boundary states and…

Recent scenarios of phenomenologically realistic string compactifications involve the existence of gauge sectors localized on D-branes at singular points of Calabi-Yau threefolds. The spectrum and interactions in these gauge sectors are…