Related papers: Optical Unification
Cosmic strings in non-abelian gauge theories naturally gain a spectrum of massless, or light, excitations arising from their embedding in color and flavor space. This opens up the possibility that colliding strings miss each other in the…
One cannot yet point to any firm string prediction. While many approximate string ground states are known with interesting properties, we do not have any argument that one or another describes what we observe around us, and for reasons…
We show that one of the ways of obtaining consistency between the idea of supersymmetric grand unification and an apparent low value of $\alpha_{strong}(M_Z)\simeq .11$ indicated by several low energy experiments is to have an intermediate…
Global strings (those which couple to Goldstone modes) may play a role in cosmology. In particular, if the QCD axion exists, axionic strings may control the efficiency of axionic dark matter abundance. The string network dynamics depend on…
Asymptotic grand unification provides an alternative approach to gradually unify gauge couplings in the UV limit, where they reach a non-trivial UV fixed point. Using an economical and realistic particle content setup, we demonstrate that…
We use string duality to describe instanton induced spontaneous supersymmetry breaking in string compactifications with additional background fields. Dynamical supersymmetry breaking by space-time instantons in the heterotic string theory…
I review our recent attempts toward obtaining the MSSM from string orbifold compactification. The required constraints are the existence of three families and R parity, vectorlike exotics, one pair of Higgs doublets, and the SU(5)$'$ hidden…
The low energy effective action of string theory depends strongly on the process of compactification and the localization of fields in extra dimensions. Explicit string constructions towards the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM)…
Four-particle tree-level scattering amplitudes in string theory are magically consistent with unitarity, reflected in the non-trivial fact that beneath the critical dimension, the residues of the amplitudes on massive poles can be expanded…
If nature is described by string theory, and if the compactification radius is large (as suggested by the unification of couplings), then the theory is in a regime best described by the low energy limit of $M$-theory. We discuss some…
The Higgs quartic coupling has now been indirectly measured at the electroweak scale. Assuming no new low-scale physics, its running is known and, together with gauge and Yukawa couplings, it is a crucial new piece of information…
Matter-Higgs unification in string-inspired supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories predicts the existence of colored states in the Higgs multiplets and calls for two extra generations of Higgs-like fields ('unhiggses'). If these states are…
Known mechanisms for breaking of supersymmetry at the level of string theory imply that at least one of the internal dimensions has a very large size. Experimental detection of the associated light Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations would be a…
An overview is given of the way in which the unification program of particle physics has evolved into the proposal of superstring theory as a prime candidate for unifying quantum gravity with the other forces and particles of nature. A key…
We approach the following question: if supersymmetry is discovered, how can we select among different supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model? In particular, we perform an analysis of the sparticle spectrum in low-energy string…
We have developed a concept of parallel existence of the ordinary (O) and mirror (M), or shadow (Sh) worlds. E_6 unification, inspired by superstring theory, restores the broken mirror parity at the scale ~ 10^18 GeV. With the aim to…
It is known that hidden U(1) gauge factors can couple to visible U(1)'s through Kinetic Mixing. This phenomenon is shown generically to occur in nonsupersymmetric string set-ups, between branes and antibranes. Kinetic Mixing acts either to…
We perform a general 1-loop analysis by adding extra matter to the SM content, as well as by allowing a non-standard U(1)Y normalization in order to achieve unification. We find numerous solutions with U(1)Y only charged extra matter and…
We review recent progress in constructing realistic brane models from type I string vacua. Explicit models with three families of the standard model gauge group and its left-right generalizations are presented with supersymmetry broken at…
Axions, periodic scalar fields coupled to gauge fields through the instanton density, have a rich variety of higher-form global symmetries. These include a two-form global symmetry, which measures the charge of axion strings. As we review,…