Related papers: Topological Amplitudes and Physical Couplings in S…
Warped compactifications with significant warping provide one of the few known mechanisms for naturally generating large hierarchies of physical scales. We demonstrate that this mechanism is realizable in string theory, and give examples…
In a previous paper we had proposed a specific route to relating the entropy of two charge black holes to the degeneracy of elementary string states in N=4 supersymmetric heterotic string theory in four dimensions. For toroidal…
The tensionless limit of classical string theory may be formulated as a topological theory on the world-sheet. A vector density carries geometrical information in place of an internal metric. It is found that path-integral quantization…
We investigate Landau-Ginzburg string theory with the singular superpotential X^{-1} on arbitrary Riemann surfaces. This theory, which is a topological version of the c=1 string at the self-dual radius, is solved using results from…
It is shown that two dimensional (2d) topological gravity in the conformal gauge has a larger symmetry than has been hitherto recognized; in the formulation of Labastida, Pernici and Witten it contains a twisted ``small'' N=4 superconformal…
The non-perturbative superpotential can be effectively calculated in $M$-theory compactification to three dimensions on a Calabi-Yau four-fold $X$. For certain $X$, the superpotential is identically zero, while for other $X$, a…
We demonstrate how recent developments in string field theory provide a framework to systematically study type II flux compactifications with non-trivial Ramond-Ramond profiles. We present an explicit example where physical observables can…
The low-momentum expansion of the two-loop four-graviton scattering amplitude in eleven-dimensional supergravity compactified on a circle and a two-torus is considered up to terms of order S^6R^4 (where S is a Mandelstam invariant and R is…
A $D>2$ topological string is presented by coupling the $2d$ topological gravity with the twisted version of the $N=2$ superconformal matter with $c=3k/(k-2)$. The latter is shown to admit $k+1$ chiral primary fields from the…
It is shown how the topological string amplitudes encode the BPS structure of wrapped M2 branes in M-theory compactification on Calabi-Yau threefolds. This in turn is related to a twisted supersymmetric index in 5 dimensions which receives…
We study a class of four-dimensional N=1 heterotic string theories which have nontrivial quantum dynamics arising from asymptotically free gauge groups. These models are obtained by orbifolding 4d N=2 heterotic/type II dual pairs by…
In this thesis we probe various interactions between toric geometry and string theory. First, the notion of a top was introduced by Candelas and Font as a useful tool to investigate string dualities. These objects torically encode the local…
The dynamics of superstring, supergravity and M theories and their compactifications are probed by studying the various perturbation theories that emerge in the strong and weak coupling limits for various directions in coupling constant…
We study little string theory (LST) compactified on $\mathbf{T}^2$, partially breaking supersymmetry by a discrete T-duality twist acting on both the K\"ahler and the complex structure of the torus. This setup gives raise to 4d…
Computing the renormalized masses and S-matrix elements in string theory, involving states whose masses are not protected from quantum corrections, requires defining off-shell amplitude with certain factorization properties. While in the…
The c-map relates classical hypermultiplet moduli spaces in compactifications of type II strings on a Calabi-Yau threefold to vector multiplet moduli spaces via a further compactification on a circle. We give an off-shell description of the…
We review several topics of interest in the study of 4d N=1 supersymmetric compactifications of the heterotic string. After a brief introduction to the construction of such models, our focus is on the novel physics which occurs at…
I discuss several aspects of strings as unified theories. After recalling the difficulties of the simplest supersymmetric grand unification schemes I emphasize the distinct features of string unification. An important role in constraining…
We review recent work in which compactifications of string and M theory are constructed in which all scalar fields (moduli) are massive, and supersymmetry is broken with a small positive cosmological constant, features needed to reproduce…
In this paper we construct a $(2,2)$ dimensional string theory with manifest $N=1$ spacetime supersymmetry. We use Berkovits' approach of augmenting the spacetime supercoordinates by the conjugate momenta for the fermionic variables. The…