Related papers: Flux Compactification
Recent developemnts in string compactifications in the presence of antisymmetric field backgrounds suggest a new simple and predictive structure for soft terms in the MSSM depending only on two parameters. They give rise to a positive…
Superstring theories in ten dimensions allow spacetime supersymmetry breaking at the string scale at the expense of controlled Minkowski backgrounds. The next-to-maximally symmetric backgrounds, found by Dudas and Mourad, involve a warped…
A longstanding question in superstring/$M$ theory is does it predict supersymmetry below the string scale? We formulate and discuss a necessary condition for this to be true; this is the mathematical conjecture that all stable, compact…
Light moduli fields in string compactifications can have interesting implications for particle physics and cosmology. Fifth force bounds impose stringent constraints on the interactions of such moduli with the visible sector. To be…
We derive formulas for counting certain classes of vacua in the string/M theory landscape. We do so in the context of the moduli space of M-theory compactifications on singular manifolds with G_2 holonomy. Particularly, we count the numbers…
Three subjects are considered here: a self-dual non-critical string that appears in Type IIB superstring theory at points in ${\rm K3}$ moduli space where the Type IIA theory has extended gauge symmetry; a conformal field theory singularity…
While axions seem ubiquitous in critical string theories, whether they might survive in any string theoretic description of nature is a difficult question. With some mild assumptions, one can frame the issues in the case that there is an…
Just comparing with the scenario that the (3+1)-dimensional "real world" of the Calabi-Yau compactification has a tremendous landscape, we conjecture that a (4+1)-dimensional holographic theory may also hold a landscape of its vacua. Unlike…
The observation in the universe of a small but positive vacuum energy strongly suggests, in the string landscape picture, that there will ultimately be a phase transition to an exactly supersymmetric universe. This ground state or "true…
The low energy effective action of string theory depends strongly on the process of compactification and the localization of fields in extra dimensions. Explicit string constructions towards the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM)…
A holographic perspective to study and characterize field spaces that arise in string compactifications is suggested. A concrete correspondence is developed by studying two-dimensional moduli spaces in supersymmetric string…
We investigate moduli field dynamics in supergravity/M-theory like set ups where we turn on fluxes along some or all of the extra dimensions. As has been argued in the context of string theory, we observe that the fluxes tend to stabilize…
Motivated by the early discovery of the gigantic landscape of string theory vacua, in recent years people switched direction to try to find constraints on low energy effective field theories from UV-complete descriptions for example quantum…
The Standard Model is the low-energy limit of a microscopic theory which includes extra dimensions and new symmetries. A part of my thesis consisted in constructing a new class of models with two extra dimensions. We showed that these…
In these lectures, we review the main properties of the topological theory obtained by twisting the N=2 two-dimensional superconformal algebra, associated to supersymmetric string compactifications. In particular, we describe a set of…
These lecture notes provide a pedagogical introduction, with exercises, to the techniques used in attempts to construct vacua with stabilised moduli in string theory. The reader is only assumed to have a basic knowledge of general…
We review recent work which has significantly sharpened our geometric understanding and interpretation of the moduli space of certain $N$=2 superconformal field theories. This has resolved some important issues in mirror symmetry and has…
We study the cosmological evolution of the volume moduli in a class of recently proposed Inflationary Universe models arising out of Type IIB string theory, where a number of the moduli fields have been stabilised through flux…
The mathematical features of a string theory compactification determine the physics of the effective four-dimensional theory. For this reason, understanding the mathematical structure of the possible compactification spaces is of profound…
Magnetic flux plays an important role in compactifications of field and string theories in two ways, it generates a multiplicity of chiral fermion zero modes and it can break supersymmetry. We derive the complete four-dimensional effective…