String Phenomenology

May 30, 2011, 8:00 AM → Jun 25, 2011, 6:00 PM Europe/Stockholm

Nordita

Gabriele Ferretti (Chalmers), Marcus Berg (SU Fysikum), Paolo Di Vecchia (Nordita)

This is a pre-STRINGS 2011 program.

A few topics that we expect to cover during the program include but are not limited to: string effective actions; stringy instantons; supersymmetry breaking; intersecting D-branes; generalized flux compactifications; inflation in string theory; string-inspired MSSM-like models; dark matter in those models.

More generally, we will try to cover what string theory has to say about physics beyond the Standard Models of both particle physics and cosmology. We will do our best to cover most current developments in string phenomenology.

During the program we plan to have one seminar or discussion every day (with an introduction to give sufficient background) on the latest developments. There will be some pedagogical lectures on basics of string phenomenology in the first three weeks (see link on left).

Registration is closed.

Monday, May 30

9:45 AM → 10:00 AM Welcome

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Conformal Field Theory Applications in String Phenomenology

Speaker: Bert Schellekens (NIKHEF)

1:00 PM → 1:30 PM Organizational meeting

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Monopoles, Lattices, and Holography

Speaker: David Tong

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM General Gauge Mediation and SUSY Phenomenology

Speaker: Valentin Khoze

4:00 PM → 5:00 PM Reception

Tuesday, May 31

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Conformal Field Theory Applications in String Phenomenology

Speaker: Bert Schellekens (NIKHEF)

1:15 PM → 2:15 PM ATLAS and Metastable Heavy Particles

Speaker: Sten Hellman (Fysikum)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

5:00 PM → 8:00 PM Grill Party

Wednesday, June 1

10:00 AM → 11:30 AM Discussion

10:00 AM → 11:30 AM Rydbeck PhD defense

1:15 PM → 2:15 PM The Power of Modular Invariance

Speaker: Carlo Angelantonj

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Thursday, June 2

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Instanton Calculations in String Phenomenology

Speaker: Alberto Lerda (Torino)

1:15 PM → 2:15 PM D-Instanton Effects From Particle Loops

Speaker: Christoffer Petersson

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Friday, June 3

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Instanton Calculations in String Phenomenology

Speaker: Alberto Lerda (Torino)

1:15 PM → 2:15 PM Holographic Non-perturbative Couplings

Speaker: Marialuisa Frau

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Monday, June 6

9:45 AM → 10:00 AM Welcome

10:00 AM → 11:00 AM String Phenomenology for the LHC

This talk will discuss the connection between string phenomenology, model building and LHC measurements. Topics will be strictly limited to those in which predictions for actual LHC observables are made. We will survey in a brief fashion direct string production at the LHC, anomalous vector boson couplings, new exotic states, quasi-stable supersymmetric particles and MSSM models with non-universal supersymmetry breaking. Topics will be drawn from intersecting brane constructions, F-theory, and orbifold compactifications of heterotic string theory.

Speaker: Brent Nelson

1:00 PM → 1:30 PM Organizational meeting

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM The LARGE Volume Scenario

I give an overview of the LARGE volume scenario. The focus is on more recent developments involving supersymmetry breaking, sequestering and the structure of soft terms. I describe the current status of the scenario and the main open problems within it.

Speaker: Joseph Conlon

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Tuesday, June 7

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Advanced Topics in Inflation

Speaker: Daniel Baumann

1:00 PM → 2:30 PM Akrami PhD defense

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Discussion

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM One-loop Adjoint Masses for Non-Supersymmetric Intersecting Branes

I am planning to give a solid introduction on 1-loop adjoint masses in intersecting D-brane worlds. I will mainly focus on models with broken supersymmetry in intersecting D-brane configurations by slight deviation of the angles from their supersymmetric values. This was discussed in our recent paper 1105.0591 [hep-th] with Antoniadis, Benakli, Goodsell, Vichi. In the open string channel, the string two-point function receives contributions only from the infrared and the ultraviolet limits. The latter is due to tree-level closed string uncanceled NS-NS tadpoles, which we explicitly reproduce from the effective Born-Infeld action. On the other hand, the infrared region reproduces the 1-loop mediation of supersymmetry breaking in the effective gauge theory, via messengers and their Kaluza-Klein excitations. In the toroidal set-up considered here, it receives contributions only from N ~ 4 and N ~ 2 supersymmetric configurations, and thus always leads at leading order to a tachyonic direction, in agreement with effective field theory expectations.

Speaker: Pascal Anastasopoulos (Vienna)

5:00 PM → 6:00 PM Reception

Wednesday, June 8

9:30 AM → 11:00 AM Pedagogical Lecture: Dark Matter Calculations

Speaker: Joakim Edsjö (OKC)

11:00 AM → 12:00 PM Theory colloquium

Speaker: Bert Schellekens (NIKHEF)

1:15 PM → 2:15 PM Goldstino Couplings to Matter

We discuss the low-energy effective action of a light goldstino coupled to SM fields by using a manifestly supersymmetric formalism, in which the goldstino and the matter fields are represented as constrained superfields. We discuss the UV sensitivity of the constraints and work out non-universal goldstino couplings to matter. The latter are important when the heavy superpartner masses are of the order of the supersymmetry breaking scale.

Speaker: Emilian Dudas

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

5:00 PM → 8:00 PM Island Dinner

Thursday, June 9

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Advanced Topics in Inflation

Speaker: Daniel Baumann (DAMTP)

1:15 PM → 2:15 PM Inflation from Axion Monodromy

Speaker: Enrico Pajer

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Friday, June 10

1:15 PM → 2:15 PM TBA

Speaker: Gianfranco Pradisi (Rome Tor Vergata)

3:00 PM → 4:20 PM Discussion

Monday, June 13

9:45 AM → 10:00 AM Welcome

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Dynamical SUSY Breaking

Speaker: Zohar Komargodski

1:00 PM → 1:30 PM Organizational meeting

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Mass Hierarchies in String Theory and Holography

Speaker: Ignatios Antoniadis (CERN)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

5:00 PM → 6:00 PM Reception

Tuesday, June 14

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Gauge Mediation

Speaker: David Shih

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM RR Photons

Type II string compactifications to 4d generically contain massless Ramond-Ramond U(1) gauge symmetries. I will discuss in detail different avenues by which U(1)_RR bosons may mix with D-brane U(1)'s. The focus will be mostly on Type IIA orientifolds and their M-theory lift, although phenomenological consequences in the context of hypercharge gauge coupling unification in F-theory SU(5) GUT's will also be discussed.

Speaker: Pablo Camara (CERN)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Wednesday, June 15

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Discussion

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Search for TeV Scale R-Parity Conserving Supersymmetry with ATLAS

The ATLAS experiment at LHC has already collected many hundreds of inverse picobarns of proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. Supersymmetry (SUSY) production at LHC is dominated by gluino and squark production. In the scenario of R-parity conservation, the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is stable and can constitute a plausible dark matter candidate. Strong SUSY production at LHC has an experimental signature characterized by multiple jets, leptons and last but not the least, missing transverse energy due to the LSPs escaping the experiment undetected. The latest results of search for strong SUSY production in this scenario using the ATLAS data are presented and discussed.

Speaker: Christophe Clément

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

5:00 PM → 8:00 PM Grill Party

Thursday, June 16

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Grand Unified Theories from String Theory

Speaker: Hans-Peter Nilles (Bonn)

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Yukawas in F-theory

I will review the results of the papers 0910.5496 and 1104.2609, that deal with the computation of Yukawa couplings in local GUT F-theory models and with how non-perturbative effects can solve the 'rank-one' problem of these models.

Speaker: Fernando Marchesano (Madrid, IFT)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Friday, June 17

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Pedagogical Lecture: Grand Unified Theories from String Theory

Speaker: Hans-Peter Nilles (Bonn)

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Tunneling in the Landscape: an Experimental Test

I shall review tunneling in scalar quantum field theory and propose an experimental test of the idea of resonant tunneling.

Speaker: Henry Tye (IAS Hong Kong)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Monday, June 20

9:45 AM → 10:00 AM Welcome

10:00 AM → 10:30 AM Organizational meeting (for everyone)

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Gaugino Masses and Semi-Direct Gauge Mediation

Speaker: Riccardo Argurio (Brussels)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

5:00 PM → 6:00 PM Reception

Tuesday, June 21

11:00 AM → 12:00 PM A Natural Universe Made by a Composite Higgs, Dark Matter and Inflaton

The bulk of the visible component of the universe is constituted by protons and neutrons which are composite particles. It is therefore natural to ask if the missing ingredients such as the Higgs, dark matter particles and inflation can also be composite. We will present the state-of-the-art of this ambitious program.

Speaker: Francesco Sannino (CP3-Origins)

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Light Higgsinos as Heralds of Higher-Dimensional Unification

Speaker: Wilfried Buchmüller (DESY)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Wednesday, June 22

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM De Sitter Solutions at Tree-Level

De Sitter solutions play an important role in cosmology and the construction of realistic vacua. They seem however notoriously difficult to construct in string theory or supergravity. I'll talk about the search for de Sitter solutions in classical supergravity and discuss a relatively simple example in more detail. I'll review the advantages and drawbacks of this approach.

Speaker: Paul Koerber (KU Leuven)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

5:00 PM → 8:00 PM Island Dinner

We will take bus 43 at 16.14 to Räntmästartrappan in Old Town (Gamla Stan), and from there the boat Fjäderholmslinjen leaving at 17.00. It costs 110 SEK -- cash only. It is a round trip ticket so remember to keep the ticket! The boat ride takes 25 minutes. The restaurant is Fjäderholmarnas Krog and on the menu is (naturally) fish, with a vegetarian option. We can take the boat back together at 19.30, or you can stay another hour and walk around the island if you prefer.

Thursday, June 23

1:30 PM → 2:30 PM Non-perturbative Effects in Type IIB and F-Theory

We address issues of systematic studies of non-perturbative effects in string theory due to string instantons by focusing on Type IIB and F-theory. We point out that the computability of such effects results in systems of diophantine equations, thus reducing to Hilbert's 10th problem. We also address instanton zero modes and non-perturbative superpotential calculations directly in F-theory by employing techniques of anomaly inflow, string junction technology, and insights from the heterotic-F-theory duality.

Speaker: Mirjam Cvetic (Pennsylvania)

3:00 PM → 4:00 PM Discussion

Friday, June 24

10:00 AM → 12:00 PM Discussion