Related papers: String Webs from Field Theory
We investigate the cosmological consequences of particle physics theories that admit stable loops of superconducting cosmic string - {\it vortons}. General symmetry breaking schemes are considered, in which strings are formed at one energy…
In the standard model, stabilization of a classically unstable cosmic string may occur through the quantum fluctuations of a heavy fermion doublet. We review numerical results from a semiclassical expansion in a reduced version of the…
We review some aspects of the dramatic consequences of supersymmetry breaking on string vacua. In particular, we focus on the issue of vacuum stability in ten-dimensional string models with broken, or without, supersymmetry, whose…
Twistor string models have been known for more than a decade now but have come back under the spotlight recently with the advent of the scattering equation formalism which has greatly generalized the scope of these models. A striking…
An example of a consistent theory with massive higher spin fields is constructed in flat space-time of dimension three. The action is written in the light-cone gauge. The theory has certain stringy features, e.g. its spectrum is unbounded…
Recently the vacuum structure of a large class of four dimensional (supersymmetric) quantum field theories was determined exactly. These theories exhibit a wide range of interesting new physical phenomena. One of the main new insights is…
Progress in string theory has resulted in a whole landscape of vacua solutions.In this talk I describe a proposal for exploring the cosmological implications of the landscape, based on the dynamics of the wavefunction of the universe…
In super-symmetric quantum theory, or in string theory, (including generalizations of these theories to underlying quantum spaces) we study a certain partition function Z(Q,A,g). Here Q denotes a supercharge, A denotes an observable with…
Recently, Kim, Shiu and Vafa proposed general consistency conditions for six dimensional supergravity theories with minimal supersymmetry coming from couplings to strings. We test them in explicit perturbative orientifold models in order to…
In this thesis we investigate the microphysics of cosmic strings in non-minimal quantum field theories. In particular we consider theories in which fermion fields couple to the strings, and those with larger symmetry groups, such as grand…
Making use of the wealth of new observational data coming from the sky it is possible to constrain particle physics theories beyond the Standard Model. One way to do this is illustrated in this article: a subset of theories admits cosmic…
The presence of fields with negative mass-squared typically leads to some form of instability in standard field theories. The observation that, at least in the light-cone gauge, strings propagating in plane wave spacetimes can have…
We investigate the low energy properties of string vacua with spontaneously broken $N=1$ supersymmetry by a dilaton $F$-term. As a consequence of the universal couplings of the dilaton, the supersymmetric mass spectrum is determined in…
Supersymmetric states in M-theory are mapped after compactification to perturbatively non-supersymmetric states in type IIA string theory, with the supersymmetric parts being encoded in the non-perturbative section of the string theory. An…
String theory, if it describes nature, is probably strongly coupled. In light of recent developments in string duality, this means that the ``real world'' should correspond to a region of the classical moduli space which admits no weak…
Through their respective sigma models, a bosonic string and a superstring can be coupled to (super)gravity fields. These are subsequently forced to satisfy their right classical equation of motions, as a consequence of quantization of the…
Cosmic string networks are expected to form in early Universe phase transitions via the Kibble mechanism and are unavoidable in several Beyond the Standard Model theories. While most predictions of observational signals of string networks…
Noncommutative \phi^3 field theory in six dimensions exhibits the logarithmic UV/IR mixing at the two-loop order. We show that open string theory in the presence of constant background NS-NS two-form field yields the same amplitude upon…
Type II string theory and M-theory admit flux configurations that break supersymmetry below the Kaluza-Klein scale. These backgrounds play a central role in most models of the string landscape. I argue that the behavior of such backgrounds…
Macroscopic fundamental and Dirichlet strings have several potential instabilities: breakage, tachyon decays, and confinement by axion domain walls. We investigate the conditions under which metastable strings can exist, and we find that…