Related papers: Chiral four-dimensional string compactifications w…

Intersecting branes have been the subject of string model building for several years. This work introduces in detail the toroidal and Z_N-orientifolds, where the main discussion employs the picture of intersecting D6-branes. The derivation…

Basics of some topics on perturbative and non-perturbative string theory are reviewed. After a mathematical survey of the Standard Model of particle physics and GUTs, the bosonic string kinematics for the free case and with interaction is…

We investigate cosmological constraints on phenomenological models with discrete gauge symmetries by discussing the radiation of standard model particles from Aharonov-Bohm strings. Using intersecting D-brane models in Type IIA string…

The type IIA nonsupersymmetric meta-stable brane configuration consisting of three NS5-branes, D4-branes and anti-D4-branes where the electric gauge theory superpotential has a quartic term for the bifundamentals besides a mass term is…

Warped string compactifications are central to many attempts to stabilize moduli and connect string theory with cosmology and particle phenomenology. We present a first-principles derivation of the low-energy 4D effective theory from…

We analyze the spectra of non-chiral and chiral bifundamental mesons arising on intersecting D7-branes in $AdS_{5}\times S^{5}$. In the absence of magnetic flux on the curve of intersection, the spectrum is non-chiral, and the dual gauge…

We consider compactifications of M-theory and type IIA string theory to four dimensions. For Minkowski space-time, a supergravity no-go theorem forbids flux supported in the internal space. We show how to evade this no-go theorem by…

Baryon number violation is discussed in gauge unified orbifold models of type II string theory with intersecting Dirichlet branes. We consider setups of D6-branes which extend along the flat Minkowski space-time directions and wrap around…

Matrix string theory is equivalent to type IIA superstring theory in the light-cone gauge, together with extra degrees of freedom representing D-brane states. It is therefore the appropriate framework in which to study systems of multiple…

We review some recent developments in the study of M-theory compactifications via Matrix theory. In particular we highlight the appearance of IIA strings and their interactions, and explain the unifying role of the M-theory five-brane for…

We discuss the sigma model description of a D-string bound to k D-fivebranes in type I string theory. The effective theory is an (0,4) supersymmetric hyper-Kahler with torsion sigma model on the moduli space of Sp(k) instantons on R^4. Upon…

We construct N=1 and N=0 chiral four-dimensional vacua of flux compactification in Type IIB string theory. These vacua have the common features that they are free of tadpole instabilities (both NSNS and RR) even for models with N=0…

This thesis describes an attempt to write down covariant actions for coincident D-branes using so-called boundary fermions instead of matrices to describe the non-abelian fields. These fermions can be thought of as Chan-Paton degrees of…

We discuss the construction of four dimensional non-supersymmetric models obtained from configurations of D6-branes intersecting at angles. We present the first examples of string GUT models which break exactly to the Standard Model (SM) at…

We describe the intersecting brane configurations, consisting of NS-branes, D4-branes(and anti-D4-branes), in type IIA string theory corresponding to the meta-stable nonsupersymmetric vacua of N=1 SU(N_c) x SU(N_c') x SU(N_c'') gauge theory…

We investigate the connections between four-dimensional, N=2 M-theory vacua constructed as orbifolds of type II, heterotic, and type I strings. All these models have the same massless spectrum, which contains an equal number of vector…

A duality relationship between certain brane configurations in type IIA and type IIB string theory is explored by exploiting the geometrical origins of each theory in M-theory. The configurations are dual ways of realising the…

We generalize the construction of four dimensional non-tachyonic orientifolds of type 0B string theory to non-supersymmetric backgrounds. We construct a four dimensional model containing self-dual D3 and D9-branes and leading to a chiral…

Phenomenological explorations of heterotic strings have conventionally focused primarily on the E8xE8 theory. We consider smooth compactifications of all three ten-dimensional heterotic theories to exhibit the many similarities between the…

Dvali and Shifman have proposed a field-theoretic mechanism for localizing gauge fields to "branes" in higher dimensional spaces using confinement in a bulk gauge theory. The resulting objects have a number of qualitative features in common…