Professor Joseph Conlon

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.

Abstract:

We look for ways to destabilise the vacuum. We describe how dense matter environments source a contribution to moduli potentials and analyse the conditions required to initiate either decompactification or a local shift in moduli vevs. We consider astrophysical objects such as neutron stars as well as cosmological and black hole singularities. Regrettably neutron stars cannot destabilise realistic Planck coupled moduli, which would require objects many orders of magnitude denser. However gravitational collapse, either in matter-dominated universes or in black hole formation, inevitably leads to a destabilisation of the compact volume causing a super-inflationary expansion of the extra dimensions.

Abstract:

We study kinetic mixing between massless U(1)s in toroidal orbifolds with D3-branes at orbifold singularities. We focus in particular on C^3/Z_4 singularities but also study C^3/Z_6 and C^3/Z'_6 singularities. We find kinetic mixing can be present and describe the conditions for it to occur. Kinetic mixing comes from winding modes in the N=2 sector of the orbifold. If kinetic mixing is present its size depends only on the complex structure modulus of the torus and is independent of the K\"ahler moduli. We also study gauge threshold corrections for local Z_M x Z_N orbifold models finding that, consistent with previous studies, gauge couplings run from the bulk winding scale rather than the string scale.