Supersymmetry and superstring phenomenology

We briefly cover the early history of supersymmetry, describe the relation of SUSY quantum field theories to superstring theories and explain why they are considered a likely tool to describe the phenomenology of high energy particle theory beyond the Standard Model.     

Landau-Lifshitz fluctuations in heterotic superstring evaporation

By means of the Landau-Lifshitz theory for nonequilibrium thermodynamical fluctuations we calculate the correlations in the rate of dissipative fluxes of a gas of heterotic superstrings. We briefly comment on the cosmological consequences.     

On inflation in the heterotic superstring model

The possibility is considered of achieving inflation in the field-theory limit of the E₈ X E₈ superstring model, which is an N = 1 supergravity theory possessing a “no-scale” SU(n, 1)/SU(n) × U(1) structure. It is shown that neither type I inflation (due to higher-derivative terms O(R²)), nor inflation due to a SUSY-breaking gaugino-condensation potential, is possible, essentially because of the absence of free dimensionless parameters. Kaluza-Klein type inflation is ruled out because the internal space is Ricci flat. The occurence of type II inflation (due to some gauge singlet “inflation” field φ) depends upon the form of the superpotential F and of the Kähler potential G, but this also seems not to be possible, unless the >SU(n, 1) symmetry can be broken in a particular way. Hence, some new type of compactification scheme may be called for, or a different type of inflation.     

Aspects of left-right symmetric models in superstring phenomenology

The general features of low-energy, rank-six left-right symmetric models as inspired by the superstring are examined. Particular attention is paid to the mass-mixing matrix of the exotic and downtype quarks. It is found that the class of models based on the groupSU(3) _C ×SU(2) _L ×SU(2) _N ×U(1) _L ×U(1) _R is plagued with the problem of unnatural fine tuning. Models based on the other left-right group, namelySU(3) _C ×SU(2) _L ×SU(2) _N ×U(1) _L ×U(1) _R , work rather well from the points of view investigated. In this case a parameter fitting is presented which is compatible with the lowering of the group rank by two units via radiative breaking, without conflicting either with weak universality or with lepton conservation. The unification scale comes in the 10¹⁷ GeV mass range, the intermediate (righthanded) scale is quite low, not exceeding the 10⁴ GeV range, and the Weinberg angle is correct. Good prospects are also obtained for proton decay and neutrino masses.     

Dilaton vertices of the closed superstring and the heterotic string

BRST - and conformally invariant dilaton vertices of the closed superstring and the heterotic string are constructed, whose counter terms are consistent with the dilaton terms introduced in the non-linear sigma model approach of string theory.     

Perturbative prepotential and monodromies in N = 2 heterotic superstring

We discuss the prepotential describing the effective field theory of N = 2 heterotic superstring models. At the one loop-level the prepotential develops logarithmic singularities due to the appearance of charged massless states at particular surfaces in the moduli space of vector multiplets. These singularities modify the classical duality symmetry group which now becomes a representation of the fundamental group of the moduli space minus the singular surfaces. For the simplest two-moduli case, this fundamental group turns out to be a certain braid group and we determine the resulting full duality transformations of the prepotential, which are exact in perturbation theory.     

Exact monodromy group of N = 2 heterotic superstring

We describe an N = 2 heterotic superstring model of rank 3 which is dual to the type II string compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold with Betti numbers b_1,1 = 2 and b_1,2 = 86. We show that the exact duality symmetry found from the type II realization contains the perturbative duality group of the heterotic model, as well as the exact quantum monodromies of the rigid SU(2) super-Yang-Mills theory. Moreover, it contains a non-perturbative monodromy which is stringy in origin and corresponds roughly to an exchange of the string coupling with the compactification radius.     

Little heterotic strings

We discuss toroidal orbifolds of the E ₈×E ₈ heterotic string, in which the free-fermionic Higgs–matter splitting is implemented by a shift in the internal lattice coupled with the fermion numbers of the gauge degrees of freedom. We consider models in which some choices of the orbifold result in the projection of the graviton. In the models that we consider the projection also results in flipping the spin–statistics assignments in the massive string spectrum, whereas the massless spectrum retains the conventional spin–statistics assignments. We argue that the partition functions are mathematically consistent for one- and multi-loop amplitudes, owning to the existence of supersymmetry in the spectrum. A duality between different models at non-zero temperature is briefly discussed.     

Non-commutative superstring worldsheet

In this paper we consider the worldsheet of the superstring as a non-commutative space. Some additional terms can be added to the superstring action, such that for an ordinary worldsheet they are zero. The expansion of this extended action up to the first order of the non-commutativity parameter leads to the new supersymmetric action for the string. For the closed superstring, we obtain the boundary state that describes a brane. From the open string point of view, the new boundary conditions on the worldsheet bosons generalize the non-commutativity of spacetime. Finally, we suggest some definitions for the non-commutativity parameter of the superstring worldsheet. Received: 19 April 2002 / Published online: 18 October 2002 RID="a" ID="a" e-mail: kamani@theory.ipm.ac.ir     

Classical superstring mechanics

We describe the classical mechanics of the superstring in both hamiltonian and lagrangian formulations, including massless external fields. The formulation is a modification of that of Green and Schwarz that allows supersymmetric Lorentz covariant quantization.