Related papers: Dualities and Categorical Structures from 2D Up
We revisit the reduction of type II supergravity on SU(3) structure manifolds, conjectured to lead to gauged N=2 supergravity in 4 dimensions. The reduction proceeds by expanding the invariant 2- and 3-forms of the SU(3) structure as well…
We study the fate of discrete gauge groups and discrete charges of gravitational theories under twisted circle compactification. We then apply our results to six-dimensional F-theory vacua with discrete gauge symmetries and relate them to…
A review is given of recent research on two-dimensional gauge theories, with particular emphasis on the equivalence between these theories and certain string theories with a two-dimensional target space. Some related open problems are…
There is a close relation between duality in $N=2$ SUSY gauge theories and integrable models. In particular, the quantum moduli space of vacua of $N=2$ SUSY $SU(3)$ gauge theories coupled to two flavors of massless quarks in the fundamental…
This talk begins with some history and basic facts about string theory and its connections with strong interactions. Comparisons of stacks of Dirichlet branes with curved backgrounds produced by them are used to motivate the AdS/CFT…
Input from QCD and string theory is used in order to elucidate basic features of the string theory dual of QCD, It is argued that the relevant string theory is a five-dimensional version of the type-0 superstring. The vacuum solution is…
Two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) has several sources: the search for simple examples of quantum field theory, the description of surface critical phenomena, the study of (super)string vacua. In the present overview of the…
We study the axio-dilaton and complex structure stabilization for a generic one-parameter Calabi-Yau (CY) compactification. We focus on near the conifold regions and consider a strongly warped metric. We analyze numerically the case of the…
Compactifications of the physical superstring to two dimensions provide a general template for realizing 2D conformal field theories coupled to worldsheet gravity, i.e. non-critical string theories. Motivated by this observation, in this…
F-theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau fivefolds give rise to two-dimensional N=(0,2) supersymmetric field theories coupled to gravity. We explore the dilaton supergravity defined by the moduli sector of such compactifications. The…
Various recently developed connections between supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories in four dimensions and two dimensional integrable systems serve as crucial ingredients in improving our understanding of the AdS/CFT correspondence. In this…
These notes contain a brief introduction to the construction of toric Calabi--Yau hypersurfaces and complete intersections with a focus on issues relevant for string duality calculations. The last two sections can be read independently and…
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 study the dynamics of a large class of N=1 quiver theories, geometrically realized by type IIB D-brane probes wrapping cycles of local Calabi-Yau threefolds. These include N=2 (affine) A-D-E quiver theories deformed by superpotential…
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…
Topological strings on Calabi--Yau manifolds are known to undergo phase transitions at small distances. We study this issue in the case of perturbative topological strings on local Calabi--Yau threefolds given by a bundle over a two-sphere.…
Motivated by studies on 4d black holes and q-deformed 2d Yang Mills theory, and borrowing ideas from compact geometry of the blowing up of affine ADE singularities, we build a class of local Calabi-Yau threefolds (CY^{3}) extending the…
We present a duality procedure that relates conventional four-dimensional matter-coupled N=1 supergravities to dual formulations in which auxiliary fields are replaced by field-strengths of gauge three-forms. The duality promotes specific…
The study of the geometry of Calabi-Yau fourfolds is relevant for compactifications of string theory, M-theory, and F-theory to various dimensions. In the first part of this thesis, we study the action of mirror symmetry on two-dimensional…
We discuss the structure of heterotic/type II duality in four dimensions as a consequence of string-string duality in six dimensions. We emphasize the new features in four dimensions which go beyond the six dimensional vacuum structure and…