Professor Joseph Conlon

Abstract:

We calculate the interaction potential between D5 and anti-D5 branes wrapping distant but homologous 2-cycles. The interaction potential is logarithmic in the separation radius and does not decouple at infinity. We show that logarithmic backreaction is generic for 5-branes wrapping distant but homologous 2-cycles, and we argue that this destabilises models of axion monodromy inflation involving NS5 brane-antibrane pairs in separate warped throats towards an uncontrolled region.

Abstract:

We study the scattering and sequestering of blow-up fields - either local to or distant from a visible matter sector - through a CFT computation of the dependence of physical Yukawa couplings on the blow-up moduli. For a visible sector of D3-branes on orbifold singularities we compute the disk correlator < \tau_s^{(1)} \tau_s^{(2)} ... \tau_s^{(n)} \psi \psi \phi > between orbifold blow-up moduli and matter Yukawa couplings. For n = 1 we determine the full quantum and classical correlator. This result has the correct factorisation onto lower 3-point functions and also passes numerous other consistency checks. For n > 1 we show that the structure of picture-changing applied to the twist operators establishes the sequestering of distant blow-up moduli at disk level to all orders in \alpha'. We explain how these results are relevant to suppressing soft terms to scales parametrically below the gravitino mass. By giving vevs to the blow-up fields we can move into the smooth limit and thereby derive CFT results for the smooth Swiss-cheese Calabi-Yaus that appear in the Large Volume Scenario.

Abstract:

We examine possibilities for the radiative generation of the Yukawa couplings and flavour structure in supersymmetric models in the supersymmetric phase. Not withstanding the non-renormalisation of the Wilsonian superpotential, this can occur through the 2-loop vertex renormalisation of the physical 1PI couplings. We describe this effect and construct models in which this occurs. For models attempting to reproduce the full flavour structure of the Standard Model, we analyse the tension between such models and constraints from low-energy flavour observables. We note that the tension is weakest for the case of generating Dirac neutrino masses.