Related papers: On Open Membranes, Cosmic Strings and Moduli Stabi…
In this talk I discuss recent developments in moduli stabilisation, SUSY breaking and chiral D-brane models together with several interesting features of cosmological models built in the framework of type IIB string compactifications. I…
If nature is described by string theory, and if the compactification radius is large (as suggested by the unification of couplings), then the theory is in a regime best described by the low energy limit of $M$-theory. We discuss some…
1. Preliminaries. 2. Heterotic string and motivations for large volume compactifications; 2.1 Gauge coupling unification; 2.2 Supersymmetry breaking by compactification. 3. M-theory on S^1/Z_2 \times Calabi-Yau. 4. Type I/I' string theory…
We study string compactifications with sixteen supersymmetries. The moduli space for these compactifications becomes quite intricate in lower dimensions, partly because there are many different irreducible components. We focus primarily,…
We consider a model with two parallel (positive tension) 3-branes separated by a distance $L$ in 5-dimensional spacetime. If the interbrane space is anti-deSitter, or is not precisely anti-deSitter but contains no event horizons, the…
Stabilization of closed string moduli in toroidal orientifold compactifications of type IIB string theory are studied using constant internal magnetic fields on D-branes and 3-form fluxes that preserve N=1 supersymmetry in four dimensions.…
In view of the expectation that the solitonic sector of the lower dimensional world may be originated from the solitonic sector of string theory, various solitonic solutions are reduced from the heterotic fivebrane solutions in the…
We analyse the cosmological implications of brane-antibrane systems in string-theoretic orbifold and orientifold models. In a class of realistic models, consistency conditions require branes and antibranes to be stuck at different fixed…
Cosmic superstrings are expected to be formed at the end of brane inflation, within the context of brane-world cosmological models inspired from string theory. By studying properties of cosmic suprestring networks, and comparing their…
We analyse the signatures of brane inflation models with moduli stabilisation. These are hybrid inflation models with a non-trivial field-space metric which can induce complex trajectories for the fields during inflation. This in turn could…
Four-dimensional compactifications of string theory provide a controlled set of possible gauge representations accounting for BSM particles and dark sector components. In this review, constraints from perturbative Type II string…
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…
D-branes are fundamental in all scenarios where there are large extra dimensions and the string scale is much smaller than the four-dimensional Planck mass. We show that this current picture leads to a new approach to string cosmology where…
We construct flux-stabilised IIB compactifications whose extra dimensions (EDs) have very different sizes, and use these to describe several vacua with a TeV string scale. Because we can access regimes where 2 dimensions are hierarchically…
It has been pointed out that cosmic string solutions can exist in gauge field theories with broken symmetry even when $\pi _1(G/H)$ is trivial. The stability of such semilocal defects is not guaranteed by topology and depends on dynamical…
We discuss the moduli space approximation for heterotic M-theory, both for the minimal case of two boundary branes only, and when a bulk brane is included. The resulting effective actions may be used to describe the cosmological dynamics in…
Phenomenological implications of the volume of the Calabi-Yau threefolds on the hidden and observable M-theory boundaries, together with slope stability of their corresponding vector bundles, constrain the set of Kaehler moduli which give…
The supermembrane theory on $R^{10}x S^1$ is investigated, for membranes that wrap once around the compact dimension. The Hamiltonian can be organized as describing $N_s$ interacting strings, the exact supermembrane corresponding to $N_s\to…
String and membrane dynamics may be unified into a theory of 2+2 dimensional self-dual world-volumes living in a 10+2 dimensional target space. Some of the vacua of this M-theory are described by the N=(2,1) heterotic string, whose target…
In the context of type IIB string theory we combine moduli stabilisation and model building on branes at del Pezzo singularities in a fully consistent global compactification. By means of toric geometry, we classify all the CY manifolds…