Related papers: The SQCD vacuum coupled to supergravity and string…
Starting from the previously constructed effective supergravity theory below the scale of U(1) breaking in orbifold compactifications of the weakly coupled heterotic string, we study the effective theory below the scale of supersymmetry…
We derive the explicit form, and discuss some properties of the moduli dependent effective potential arising from M-theory compactified on $M_4 \times X\times S^1 / Z_2 $, when one of the boundaries supports a strongly interacting gauge…
A new class of metastable de Sitter vacua is presented and analyzed in N =1 supergravity and string theory with tunable (infinitesimally small) value of the cosmological constant. They are based on a gauged R-symmetry and the minimal…
We analyze the moduli space of spontaneously broken N=8 supergravity theories in 4 dimensions with classical Minkowski vacua. We find that all the known classical vacua, as well as the several new ones we construct here, can be connected by…
We derive the five-dimensional effective action of strongly coupled heterotic string theory for the complete (1,1) sector of the theory by performing a reduction, on a Calabi-Yau three-fold, of M-theory on S^1/Z_2. A crucial ingredient for…
We study the vacuum structure of compactifications of type II string theories on orientifolds with SU(3)xSU(3) structure. We argue that generalised geometry enables us to treat these non-geometric compactifications using a supergravity…
We review a construction, using the harmonic space method, of solutions to the superfield equations of motion for N-extended self-dual supergravity theories. A superspace gauge condition suitable for the performance of a component analysis…
We construct supergravity plus branes solutions, which we argue to be related to 4d N=1 SQCD with a quartic superpotential. The geometries depend on the ratio Nf/Nc which can be kept of order one, present a good singularity at the origin…
We consider the vacuum structure of the finite N=2 theory with N_f=2N fundamental hypermultiplets broken to N=1 by a superpotential for the adjoint chiral multiplet. We do this in two ways: firstly, by compactification to three dimensions,…
Recent interest in novel phases in high density QCD motivates the study of high density supersymmetric QCD (SQCD), where powerful exact results for supersymmetric gauge theories can be brought to bear in the strongly coupled regime. We…
We discuss the mass-deformed N=4 SU(N) supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory (also known as the N=1* theory). We analyze how the correlation functions of this theory transform under S-duality, and which correlation functions depend…
Recent discoveries in supersymmetric gauge theories have significant implications for our understanding for QCD and of field theory in general. The phases of N=1 supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) are discussed, and the possibility of similar phases…
We investigate the stability of the hidden sector gaugino condensate in a SL(2,Z)-invariant supergravity model inspired by the E8*E8 heterotic string, using the chiral superfield formalism. We calculate the Planck-suppressed corrections to…
We study a cosmic string solution of an N=1-supersymmetric version of the Cremmer-Scherk-Kalb-Ramond (CSKR) Lagrangian coupled to a vector superfield by means of a topological mass term. The 2-form gauge potential is proposed to couple…
We review the supergravity derivation of some non-perturbatively generated effective superpotentials for N=1 gauge theories. Specifically, we derive the Veneziano-Yankielowicz superpotential for pure N=1 Super Yang-Mills theory from the…
Effective superpotentials obtained by integrating out matter in super Yang-Mills and conformal supergravity backgrounds in N=1 SUSY theories are considered. The pure gauge and supergravity contributions (generalizing Veneziano-Yankielowicz…
The weakly-coupled heterotic string is known to have problems of dilaton/moduli stabilization, supersymmetry breaking (by hidden-sector gaugino condensation), gauge coupling unification (or the Newton's constant), QCD axion, as well as…
We propose a generalisation of the Weak Gravity Conjecture in the presence of scalar fields. The proposal is guided by properties of extremal black holes in ${\cal N}=2$ supergravity, but can be understood more generally in terms of…
We discuss recent progress in the understanding of the vacuum structure (effective superpotentials) of confining gauge theories with N=1 supersymmetry. Even for non-supersymmetric theories, appropriate perturbative calculations (e.g. using…
This talk is a brief review of gaugino condensation in superstring effective field theories and some related issues (such as renormalization of the gauge coupling in the effective supergravity theories and modular anomaly cancellation). As…