Published in The European Physical Journal C
Tiny values for gauge couplings of dark photons allow to suppress their kinetic mixing with ordinary photons. We point out that the weak gravity conjecture predicts consequently low ultraviolet cut-offs where new degrees of freedom might appear. In particular, a mixing angle of O(10-15)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{...
The moduli space of toroidal type I vacua, which are consistent at the non-perturbative level, consists of independent branches characterized by the number (0, 16 or 32) of rigid branes sitting on top of orientifold planes. This structure persists also when supersymmetry is spontaneously broken a la Scherk-Schwarz. We show that all the components o...
When supersymmetry is spontaneously broken at tree level, the spectrum of the heterotic string compactified on orbifolds of tori contains an infinite number of potentially tachyonic modes. We show that this implies instabilities of Minkowski spacetime, when the scale of supersymmetry breaking is of the order of the string scale. We derive the phase...
Published in Journal of High Energy Physics
We consider phase transitions occurring in four-dimensional heterotic orbifold models, when the scale of spontaneous breaking of N\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{d...
Published in Journal of High Energy Physics
We find that the equations describing T-branes with constant worldvolume fields are identical to the equations found by Banks, Seiberg and Shenker twenty years ago to describe longitudinal five-branes in the BFSS matrix model. Besides giving new ways to construct T-brane solutions, this connection also helps elucidate the physics of T-branes in the...
Published in Journal of High Energy Physics
We investigate pD6¯\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ \overline{\mathrm{D}6} $$\end{document} branes inside a flux throat that carries K × M D6 charges wi...
