Related papers: A superspace approach to branes and supergravity
These lectures present some topics of string phenomenology and contain two parts. In the first part, I review the possibility of lowering the string scale in the TeV region, that provides a theoretical framework for solving the mass…
We will report on recent advances in the understanding of non-perturbative interconnections between different string dualities. Weak-strong coupling duality (S-duality) and T-duality (symmetry under compactification on dual tori) allows one…
This is a broad-brush review of how string theory addresses several important questions of gravitational physics. The problem of non-renormalizability is first reviewed, followed by introduction of string theory as an ultraviolet-finite…
Recently, branes in supergravity have become an indispensable tool even for traditional relativists. The purpose of this manuscript is to provide a pedagogical account of the brane technology so that the relativists can use branes in their…
At the macrosopic level we study candidate 3D effective field theories associated to M theory in three dimensions. These represent analogs of 11D supergravity for eleven dimensional M-theory. At the microscopic level we study various world…
The role of instantons in describing non-perturbative aspects of globally supersymmetric gauge theories is reviewed. The cases of theories with N=1, N=2 and N=4 supersymmetry are discussed. Special attention is devoted to the intriguing…
We derive harmonic superspaces for N=2,3,4 SYM theory in four dimensions from superstring theory. The pure spinors in ten dimensions are dimensionally reduced and yield the harmonic coordinates. Two anticommuting BRST charges implement…
Recent developments in supersymmetric unified theories are reviewed, with particular emphasis on supersymmetric grand unification and a brief discussion of recent ideas about extra dimensions.
We propose a class of models in which extended objects are introduced in Chern-Simons supergravity in such a way that those objects appear on the same footing as the target space. This is motivated by the idea that branes are already first…
Motivated by string-theoretic swampland conjectures, the existence of a dark fifth dimension, whose size is roughly 1 -- 10 microns, has been proposed. A great deal of supporting evidence has been presented, and definitive experimental…
We explain how fractional spin and statistics are relevant to (super)strings in a three-dimensional (3D) Minkowski spacetime.
We generalize the ISS model of spontaneous supersymmetry breaking to lower dimensions. We also comment on the dynamics of the corresponding brane systems in string theory, and on possible applications to gauge/gravity duality.
We suggest a D=11 super Poincar\'e invariant action for the superstring which has free dynamics in the physical variables sector. Instead of the standard approach based on the searching for an action with local $\kappa$-symmetry (or,…
In this opening talk I first describe how we are entering a data-rich era, and what clues we might soon have to physics beyond the SM (on a time scale of several years). Then we turn to a number of the basic issues we hope to explain, and…
A new class of warped Anti-de Sitter solutions is found, arising as the near-horizon region of various semi-localized brane intersections. The dual gauge theories of AdS in warped spacetimes have reduced supersymmetry, which is pertinent to…
Recent theoretical developments have generated a strong interest in the ``brane-world'' picture, which assumes that ordinary matter is trapped in a three-dimensional submanifold, usually called brane, embedded in a higher dimensional space.…
We construct the non-linear realisation of the semi-direct product of E11 and its vector representation in five and eleven dimensions and find the dynamical equations it predicts at low levels. Restricting these results to contain only the…
We construct a class of intersecting brane solutions with horizon geometries of the form adS_k x S^l x S^m x E^n. We describe how all these solutions are connected through the addition of a wave and/or monopoles. All solutions exhibit…
In the strong coupling limit type IIA superstring theory develops an eleventh dimension that is not apparent in perturbation theory. This suggests the existence of a consistent 11d quantum theory, called M theory, which is approximated by…
These lectures explore what can be learnt about M-theory from its superalgebra. The first three lectures introduce the 'basic' branes of M-theory, and type II superstring theories, and show how the duality relations between them are encoded…