Related papers: An Effective Supergravity for the Thermal Phases o…
This Ph.D. thesis investigates effective field and string theories in which supersymmetry is realized and broken in various ways. Chapter 1 addresses effective theories with nonlinearly realized supersymmetry, constructed using the…
We recast the result of our recent computation of the quartic action of ten-dimensional IIB supergravity in a manifestly SL(2,R)-covariant form. This affords us a critical assessment of an earlier conjecture in the literature.
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…
This text is a review of aspects of supergravity theories that are relevant in superstring cosmology. In particular, it considers the possibilities and restrictions for `uplifting terms', i.e. methods to produce de Sitter vacua. We…
Non-uniform black strings coupled to a gauge field are constructed by a perturbative method in a wide range of spacetime dimensions. At the linear order of perturbations, we see that the Gregory-Laflamme instability vanishes at the point…
In this paper we study $T^2$ compactification of 6-dimensional massive type IIA supergravity in presence of Ramond-Ramond background fluxes. The resulting theory in four dimensions is shown to possess $SL(2,R)\times SL(2,R)\times O(4,20)$…
Thermal duality, which relates the physics of closed strings at temperature T to the physics at the inverse temperature 1/T, is one of the most intriguing features of string thermodynamics. Unfortunately, the classical definitions of…
We review what has been learnt and what remains unknown about the physics of hot enhancons following studies in supergravity. We recall a rather general family of static, spherically symmetric, non-extremal enhancon solutions describing D4…
It is shown that the effective string recently introduced to describe the long distance dynamics of 3D gauge systems in the confining phase has an intriguing description in terms of models of 2D self-avoiding walks in the dense phase. The…
We report on the formulation of $N=2$ $D=4$ supergravity coupled to $n_V$ abelian vector multiplets in presence of electric and magnetic charges. General formulae for the (moduli dependent) electric and magnetic charges for the $n_V+1$…
A new heterotic N=2 string with manifest target space supersymmetry is constructed by combining a conventional N=2 string in the right-moving sector and a Green-Schwarz-Berkovits type string in the left-moving sector. The corresponding…
We review recent developments in the construction of heterotic and type II string field theories and their various applications. These include systematic procedures for determining the shifts in the vacuum expectation values of fields under…
Abst\-ract: A hierarchy of effective three-dimensional theories of finite temperature electroweak matter is studied. First an integration over non-static modes leads to an effective theory containing a gauge field $A_{i}^{a}$, an adjoint…
Pair creation of strings in time-dependent backgrounds is studied from an effective field theory viewpoint, and some possible cosmological applications are discussed. Simple estimates suggest that excited strings may have played a…
We construct off-shell amplitudes in heterotic and type II string theories involving arbitrary combination of Ramond and Neveu-Schwarz sector external states. We also construct the equations of motion of a gauge invariant 1PI effective…
We compute threshold effects to gauge couplings in four-dimensional $Z_N$ orientifold models of type I strings with ${\cal N}=2$ and ${\cal N}=1$ supersymmetry, and study their dependence on the geometric moduli. We also compute the…
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…
A class of time dependent pp-waves with NS-NS flux in type IIA string theory is considered. The background preserves 1/4 supersymmetry and may provide a toy model of Big Bang cosmology with non trivial flux. At the Big Bang singularity in…
Maintaining the preserved supersymmetry helps to find the effective Lagrangian on the BPS background in gauge theories with eight supercharges. As concrete examples, we take 1/2 BPS domain walls. The Lagrangian is given in terms of the…
We discuss the duality between two type I compactifications to four dimensions and an heterotic construction with spontaneous breaking of the N=4 supersymmetry to N=2. This duality allows us to gain insight into the non-perturbative…