Related papers: The heterotic perturbative vacua in string geometr…
In this paper we investigate compactifications of the type II and heterotic string on four-dimensional spaces with nongeometric monodromies. We explicitly construct backgrounds which contain the "Duality Twists" discussed by Dabholkar and…
We study the cosmology of perturbative heterotic superstring theory during the radiation-like era for semi-realistic backgrounds with initial $\N=1$ supersymmetry. This analysis is valid for times after the Hagedorn era (or alternatively…
A review is given of the implications of supersymmetric black holes for the non-perturbative formulation of toroidally compactified superstrings, with particular emphasis on symmetry enhancement at special vacua and S-duality of the…
In these lectures we give a brief introduction to perturbative and non-perturbative string theory. The outline is the following: 1. Introduction to perturbative string theory 1.1 From point particle to extended objects 1.2 Free closed and…
We demonstrate a first-principle analysis of the string theory landscapes in the framework of non-critical string/matrix models. In particular, we discuss non-perturbative instability, decay rate and the true vacuum of perturbative string…
Superstring theories are very promising theoretically, but the enormous landscape of string vacua and the (likely) very large underlying string scale imply that they may never be tested directly. Nevertheless, concrete constructions…
In this article we review four-dimensional string vacua with N=2 space-time supersymmetry. In particular, we will discuss several aspects of the string-string duality between the heterotic string, compactified on $K3\times T^2$, and the…
A strong-weak coupling duality symmetry of the string equations of motion has been suggested in the literature. This symmetry implies that vacua occur in pairs. Since the coupling constant is a dynamical variable in string theory, tunneling…
We briefly review the recent programme to construct, systematically and algorithmically, large classes of heterotic vacua, as well as the search for the MSSM therein. Specifically, we outline the monad construction of vector bundles over…
We argue that a generic instability afflicts vacua that arise in theories whose moduli space has large dimension. Specifically, by studying theories with multiple scalar fields we provide numerical evidence that for a generic local minimum…
A study is made of the implications of heterotic string $T$-duality and extended gauge symmetry for the conjectured equivalence of heterotic and Type I superstrings. While at first sight heterotic string world-sheet dynamics appears to…
The study of curved D-brane geometries in type II strings implies a general relation between local singularities $\cx W$ of Calabi-Yau manifolds and gravity free supersymmetric QFT's. The minimal supersymmetric case is described by F-theory…
The recent progress in the understanding of the landscape of string theory vacua hints that the hierarchy problem might be the problem of a super-selection rule. The attractor mechanism gives a possibility to explain the choice of a vacuum.…
We show that bosonic strings may be viewed as a particular class of vacua for N=1 superstrings, and N=1 superstrings may be viewed as a particular class of vacua for N=2 strings. Continuing this line of string hierarchies, we are led to…
Recent developments in string theory suggest that string theory landscape of vacua is vast. It is natural to ask if this landscape is as vast as allowed by consistent-looking effective field theories. We use universality ideas from string…
We consider a wide class of cascading gauge theories which usually lead to runaway behaviour in the IR, and discuss possible deformations of the superpotential at the bottom of the cascade which stabilize the runaway direction and provide…
We discuss solutions of the heterotic string theory which are analogous to bosonic and superstring backgrounds related to coset conformal field theories. A class of exact `left-right symmetric' solutions is obtained by supplementing the…
In the recent times a lot of effort has been devoted to improve our knowledge about the space of string theory vacua (``the landscape'') to find statistical grounds to justify how and why the theory selects its vacuum. Particularly…
This review provides an introduction to non-geometric backgrounds in string theory. Starting from a discussion of T-duality, geometric and non-geometric torus-fibrations are reviewed, generalised geometry and its relation to non-geometric…
We propose a nonperturbative definition of heterotic string theory on arbitrary multidimensional tori.