Related papers: How generic is cosmic string formation in SUSY GUT…
We examine the consequences of recent developments on Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) terms for D-term inflationary models. There is currently no known way to couple constant FI terms to supergravity consistently; only field-dependent FI terms are…
We introduce fully SGUTs, SUSY grand unified theories that, upon symmetry breaking through the Higgs mechanism, decompose into a visible sector and an extra sector where the dynamics of the extra sector gauge group is responsible for SUSY…
Recent measurements of the values of gauge coupling constants as well as neutrino properties support the idea of a grand unified (GUT) description of particle physics at a large scale of $M_{GUT}\sim 10^{16}$ GeV. We discuss a strategy to…
We argue that cosmic strings with high winding numbers generally form in first-order gauge symmetry breaking phase transitions, and we demonstrate this using computer simulations. These strings are heavier than single-winding strings and…
We investigate the possibility of generating the $\mu$-term in the MSSM by the condensation of a field that is a singlet under the SM gauge group but charged under an additional family-independent $U(1)_X$ gauge symmetry. We attempt to do…
Recent developments in string theory suggest that cosmic strings could be formed at the end of brane inflation. Supergravity provides a realistic model to study the properties of strings arising in brane inflation. Whilst the properties of…
We consider N=1 supersymmetric U(N), SO(N), and Sp(N) gauge theories, with two-index tensor matter and added tree-level superpotential, for general breaking patterns of the gauge group. By considering the string theory realization and…
The main problem of inflation in string theory is finding the models with a flat potential, consistent with stabilization of the volume of the compactified space. This can be achieved in the theories where the potential has (an approximate)…
We consider non-supersymmetric GUT inflation models in which intermediate mass monopoles may survive inflation because of the restricted number of e-foldings experienced by the accompanying symmetry breaking. Thus, an observable flux of…
We consider SUSY SO(10) models in which SUSY breaking occurs via an F-term which does not transform as an SO(10) singlet. This results in non-universal GUT-scale gaugino masses leading to a different pattern of sparticle masses from what is…
Superstring theory, models with extra dimensions and other SUSY models generically predict that the coupling constants are in fact vacuum expectation values of fields like the dilaton, moduli etc. Assuming some of these fields are light…
The region of moduli space of string theories which is most likely to describe the "real world" is where the string coupling is about unity and the volume of extra compact dimensions is about the same size as the string volume. Here we map…
Motivated by the simplicity and direct phenomenological applicability of field-theoretic orbifold constructions in the context of grand unification, we set out to survey the immensely rich group-theoretical possibilities open to this type…
Recently, an attractive model of GUT breaking has been proposed in which a 5 dimensional supersymmetric SU(5) gauge theory on an S^1/(Z_2\times Z_2') orbifold is broken down to the 4d MSSM by SU(5)-violating boundary conditions. Motivated…
Obtaining realistic supersymmetry preserving vacua in the minimal renormalizable supersymmetric $Spin(10)$ GUT model introduces considerations of the non-trivial topology of the vacuum manifold. The $D$-parity of low energy unification…
In grand unified theories (GUT) based on SO(10) all fermions of one generation are embedded in a single representation. As a result, the top quark, the bottom quark, and the $\tau$ lepton have a universal Yukawa coupling at the GUT scale.…
Cosmic strings can arise in hidden sector models with a spontaneously broken Abelian symmetry group. We have studied the couplings of the Standard Model fields to these so-called dark strings in the companion paper. Here we survey the…
We consider an SU(2) gauge theory in six-dimensions. We show that there exists non-trivial structure of gauge vacua in compactified background M4xS2. In this circumstances, there can exist a cosmic string, whose solution is recently…
In this talk, we present a minimal viable scenario that unifies the gauge symmetries of the Standard Model (SM) and their breaking sector. Our Gauge-Higgs Grand Unification setup employs 5D warped space with a $SU(6)$ bulk gauge field that…
I review the theoretical expectactions for the top-quark mass in a variety of models: the Standard Model, unified models (GUTs), low-energy supersymmetric models (SUSY), unified supersymmetric models (SUSY GUTs), supergravity models, and…