Related papers: Picard-Fuchs Equations and Special Geometry
The study of the geometry of Calabi-Yau fourfolds is relevant for compactifications of string theory, M-theory, and F-theory to various dimensions. In the first part of this thesis, we study the action of mirror symmetry on two-dimensional…
We investigate the prepotential that describes certain F^4 couplings in eight dimensional string compactifications, and show how they can be computed from the solutions of inhomogenous differential equations. These appear to have the form…
Five dimensional field theories with exceptional gauge groups are engineered from degenerations of Calabi-Yau threefolds. The structure of the Coulomb branch is analyzed in terms of relative K\"ahler cones. For low number of flavors, the…
We discuss the topology of the symmetry groups appearing in compactified (super-)gravity, and discuss two applications. First, we demonstrate that for 3 dimensional sigma models on a symmetric space G/H with G non-compact and H the maximal…
Using ``Tate's algorithm,'' we identify loci in the moduli of F-theory compactifications corresponding to enhanced gauge symmetry. We apply this to test the proposed F-theory/heterotic dualities in six dimensions. We recover the…
We realize the simple Lie superalgebra G(3) as supersymmetry of various geometric structures, most importantly super-versions of the Hilbert-Cartan equation (SHC) and Cartan's involutive PDE system that exhibit G(2) symmetry. We provide the…
The quotient singularities of dimensions two and three obtained from polyhedral groups and the corresponding binary polyhedral groups admit natural resolutions of singularities as Hilbert schemes of regular orbits whose exceptional fibres…
We construct a topological theory for euclidean gravity in four dimensions, by enforcing self-duality conditions on the spin connection. The corresponding topological symmetry is associated to the SU(2) X diffeomorphism X U(1) invariance.…
We study the relation between supersymmetry and geometric flows driven by the Bianchi identity for the three-form flux $H$ in heterotic supergravity. We describe how the flow equations can be derived from a functional that appears in a…
We study supergravity models in four dimensions where the hidden sector is superconformal and strongly-coupled over several decades of energy below the Planck scale, before undergoing spontaneous breakdown of scale invariance and…
We show that the irreducible holomorphic symplectic eightfold Z associated to a cubic fourfold Y not containing a plane is deformation-equivalent to the Hilbert scheme of four points on a K3 surface. We do this by constructing for a generic…
In supergravity compactifications, there is in general no clear prescription on how to select a finite-dimensional family of metrics on the internal space, and a family of forms on which to expand the various potentials, such that the…
We study a system of equations on a compact complex manifold, that couples the scalar curvature of a Kaehler metric with a spectral function of a first-order deformation of the complex structure. The system comes from an…
We define the Kobayashi quotient of a complex variety by identifying points with vanishing Kobayashi pseudodistance between them and show that if a compact complex manifold has an automorphism whose order is infinite, then the fibers of…
In this paper, we study the monodromy of Appell hypergeometric partial differential equations, which lead us to find four derivatives which are associated to the group GL(3). Our four derivatives have the remarkable properties. We find that…
We report on the gauged supergravity analysis of Type IIB vacua on K3x T2/Z2 orientifold in the presence of D3-D7-branes and fluxes. We discuss supersymmetric critical points correspond to Minkowski vacua and the related fixing of moduli,…
We study the four-dimensional effective theory arising from ten-dimensional heterotic supergravity compactified on manifolds with torsion. In particular, given the heterotic superpotential appropriately corrected at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha')$…
We study the impacts of matter field K\"ahler metric on physical Yukawa couplings in string compactifications. Since the K\"ahler metric is non-trivial in general, the kinetic mixing of matter fields opens a new avenue for realizing a…
We discuss the connection between Picard-Fuchs equations for certain families of lattice polarized K3 surfaces and the construction of integrable holomorphic conformal structures on their period domains. We then compute an explicit example…
We discuss known maximal D-dimensional supergravities of two types: type I with G/H coset spaces and type II derived by compactification from higher dimensions without dualization, these have less manifest symmetries. In 4D and 6D in type I…