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I. Antoniadis

Publications and source records attributed to I. Antoniadis.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Type-I strings on magnetised orbifolds and brane transmutation

In the presence of internal magnetic fields, a D9 brane can acquire a D5 (or anti-D5) R-R charge, and can therefore contribute to the corresponding tadpole. In the resulting vacua, supersymmetry is generically broken and tachyonic instabilities are present. However, suitable choices for the magnetic fields, corresponding to self-dual configurations in the internal space, can yield new chiral supersymmetric vacua with gauge groups of reduced rank, where the magnetic energy saturates, partly or fully, the negative tension of the O5+ planes. These models contain Green-Schwarz couplings to untwisted R-R forms not present in conventional orientifolds.

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Large Dimensions and String Physics in Future Colliders

We review the status of low-scale string theories and large extra-dimensions. After an overview on different string realizations, we discuss some of the main important problems and we summarize present bounds on the size of possible extra-dimensions from collider experiments.

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A D-brane alternative to unification

We propose a minimal embedding of the Standard Model spectrum in a D-brane configuration of type I string theory. The SU(3) color and SU(2) weak interactions arise from two different collections of branes. The model is neither grand unified nor supersymmetric but it naturally leads to the right prediction of the weak angle for a string scale of the order of a few TeV. It requires two Higgs doublets and guarantees proton stability.

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Radiative Symmetry Breaking in Brane Models

We propose a way to generate the electroweak symmetry breaking radiatively in non-supersymmetric type I models with string scale in the TeV region. By identifying the Higgs field with a tree-level massless open string state, we find that a negative squared mass term can be generated at one loop. It is finite, computable and typically a loop factor smaller than the string scale, that acts as an ultraviolet cutoff in the effective field theory. When the Higgs open string has both ends confined on our world brane, its mass is predicted to be around 120 GeV, i.e. that of the lightest Higgs in the minimal supersymmetric model for large $\tanβ$ and $m_A$. Moreover, the string scale turns out to be one to two orders of magnitude higher than the weak scale. We also discuss possible effects of higher order string threshold corrections that might increase the string scale and the Higgs mass.

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Looking For TeV-Scale Strings and Extra-Dimensions

In contrast to the old heterotic string case, the (weakly coupled) type I brane framework allows to have all, part or none of the standard model gauge group factors propagating in large extra--dimensions of TeV$^{-1}$ size. We investigate the main experimental signatures of these possibilities, related to the production of Kaluza-Klein excitations of gluons and electroweak gauge bosons. A discovery through direct observation of resonances is possible only for compactification scales below 6 TeV. However effects due to exchange of virtual Kaluza-Klein excitations could be observed for higher scales. We find that LHC can probe compactification scales as high as 20 TeV for excitations of gluons and 8-15 TeV for excitations of electroweak gauge bosons. Finally, in the case where no gauge boson feels the extra-dimension, we find that effective contact interactions due to massive string mode oscillations dominate those due to the exchange of Kaluza-Klein excitations of gravitons and could be used to obtain bounds on the string scale.

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Mass scales, supersymmetry breaking and open strings

We review physical motivations and possible realizations of string vacua with large internal volume and/or low string scale and discuss the issue of supersymmetry breaking. In particular, we describe the key features of Scherk-Schwarz deformations in type I models and conclude by reviewing the phenomenon of ``brane supersymmetry breaking'': the tadpole conditions of some type-I models require that supersymmetry be {\it broken at the string scale} on a collection of branes, while being exact, to lowest order, in the bulk and on other branes.

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Type I vacua with brane supersymmetry breaking

We show how chiral type I models whose tadpole conditions have no supersymmetric solution can be consistently defined introducing antibranes with non-supersymmetric world volumes. At tree level, the resulting stable non-BPS configurations correspond to tachyon-free spectra, where supersymmetry is broken at the string scale on some (anti)branes but is exact in the bulk, and can be further deformed by the addition of brane-antibrane pairs of the same type. As a result, a scalar potential is generated, that can stabilize some radii of the compact space. This setting has the novel virtue of linking supersymmetry breaking to the consistency requirements of an underlying fundamental theory.

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Mass scales in string and M-theory

I review the relations between mass scales in various string theories and in M-theory. I discuss physical motivations and possible consistent realizations of large volume compactifications and low string scale. Large longitudinal dimensions, seen by Standard Model particles, imply in general that string theory is strongly coupled unless its tension is close to the compactification scale. Weakly coupled, low-scale strings can in turn be realized only in the presence of extra large transverse dimensions, seen through gravitational interactions, or in the presence of infinitesimal string coupling. In the former case, quantum gravity scale is also low, while in the latter, gravitational and string interactions remain suppressed by the four-dimensional Planck mass. There is one exception in this general rule, allowing for large longitudinal dimensions without low string scale, when Standard Model is embedded in a six-dimensional fixed-point theory described by a tensionless string. Extra dimensions of size as large as TeV$^{-1}\simeq 10^{-16}$ cm are motivated from the problem of supersymmetry breaking in string theory, while TeV scale strings offer a solution to the gauge hierarchy problem, as an alternative to softly broken supersymmetry or technicolor. I discuss these problems in the context of the above mentioned string realizations, as well as the main physical implications both in particle accelerators and in experiments that measure gravity at sub-millimeter distances.

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Gauge couplings in four-dimensional Type I string orbifolds

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 tree-level (disk) couplings of the open sector gauge fields to the twisted closed string moduli of the orbifold in various models and study their effects and that of the one-loop threshold corrections on gauge coupling unification. We interpret the results from the (supergravity) effective theory point of view and comment on the conjectured heterotic-type I duality

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Non-perturbative Supersymmetry Breaking and Finite Temperature Instabilities in N=4 Superstrings

We obtain the non-perturbative effective potential for the dual five-dimensional N=4 strings in the context of finite-temperature regarded as a breaking of supersymmetry into four space-time dimensions. Using the properties of gauged N=4 supergravity we derive the universal thermal effective potential describing all possible high-temperature instabilities of the known N=4 superstrings. These strings undergo a high-temperature transition to a new phase in which five-branes condense. This phase is described in detail, using both the effective supergravity and non-critical string theory in six dimensions. In the new phase, supersymmetry is perturbatively restored but broken at the non-perturbative level.

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Brane Supersymmetry Breaking

We show how to construct chiral tachyon-free perturbative orientifold models, where supersymmetry is broken at the string scale on a collection of branes while, to lowest order, the bulk and the other branes are supersymmetric. In higher orders, supersymmetry breaking is mediated to the remaining sectors, but is suppressed by the size of the transverse space or by the distance from the brane where supersymmetry breaking primarily occurred. This setting is of interest for orbifold models with discrete torsion, and is of direct relevance for low-scale string models. It can guarantee the stability of the gauge hierarchy against gravitational radiative corrections, allowing an almost exact supergravity a millimeter away from a non-supersymmetric world.

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Open Descendants of Z_2\times Z_2 Freely-Acting Orbifolds

We discuss Z_2 \times Z_2 orientifolds where the orbifold twists are accompanied by shifts on momentum or winding lattice states. The models contain variable numbers of D5 branes, whose massless (and, at times, even massive) modes have variable numbers of supersymmetries. We display new type-I models with partial supersymmetry breaking N=2 \to N=1, N=4 \to N=1 and N=4 \to N=2. The geometry of these models is rather rich: the shift operations create brane multiplets related by orbifold transformations that support gauge groups of reduced rank. Some of the models are deformations of six-dimensional supersymmetric type-I models, while others have dual M-theory descriptions.

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Non-Supersymmetric Type I Strings with Zero Vacuum Energy

We study open descendants of non-supersymmetric type IIB asymmetric (freely acting) orbifolds with zero cosmological constant. A generic feature of these models is that supersymmetry remains unbroken on the brane at all mass levels, while it is broken in the bulk in a way that preserves Fermi-Bose degeneracy in both the massless and massive (closed string) spectrum. This property remains valid in the heterotic dual of the type II model but only for the massless excitations. A possible application of these constructions concerns scenarios of low-energy supersymmetry breaking with large dimensions.

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Large Dimensions and String Physics at a TeV

Large extra dimensions, of size of order of TeV^{-1} ~= 10^{-16} cm, arise naturally in the context of supersymmetry breaking in string theory, while strings at a TeV scale offer a solution to the gauge hierarchy problem, as an alternative to softly broken supersymmetry or technicolor. In this short review, we present consistent perturbative realizations of string theories with large volume compactifications and low string tensions, and discuss their main physical implications.

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Direct collider signatures of large extra dimensions

The realization of low (TeV) scale strings usually requires the existence of large (TeV) extra dimensions where gauge bosons live. The direct production of Kaluza-Klein excitations of the photon and Z-boson at present and future colliders is studied in this work. At the LEPII, NLC and Tevatron colliders, these Kaluza-Klein modes lead to deviations from the standard model cross-sections, which provide lower bounds on their mass. At the LHC the corresponding resonances can be produced and decay on-shell, triggering a characteristic pattern in the distribution of the dilepton invariant mass.

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Partial breaking of supersymmetry, open strings and M-theory

We study total and partial supersymmetry breaking by freely acting orbifolds, or equivalently by Scherk-Schwarz compactifications, in type I string theory. In particular, we describe a four-dimensional chiral compactification with spontaneously broken N=1 supersymmetry, some models with partial $N=4\to N=2$ and $N=4\to N=1$ supersymmetry breaking and their heterotic and M-theory duals. A generic feature of these models is that in the gravitational sector and in the spectrum of D-branes parallel to the breaking coordinate, all mass splittings are proportional to the compactification scale, while global (extended) supersymmetry remains unbroken at tree level for the massless excitations of D-branes transverse to the breaking direction.

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On Possible Modifications of Gravitation in the (sub)millimeter range

I discuss possible modifications of gravitation at short distances in string theories with large internal dimensions and low string scale. The modifications are due to the change of Newton's law in the presence of (sub)millimeter-size transverse dimensions, or due to the existence of light scalars with masses as small as 10^{-3} eV, related to the mechanism of supersymmetry breaking, mediating new Yukawa-type forces with strength comparable to gravity. These modifications are testable in "tabletop" experiments that measure gravity at such short distances.

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