Effective superpotentials for B-branes in Landau-Ginzburg models

We compute the partition function for the topological Landau-Ginzburg B-model on the disk. This is done by treating the worldsheet superpotential perturbatively. We argue that this partition function as a function of bulk and boundary perturbations may be identified with the effective D-brane superpotential in the target spacetime. We point out the relationship of this approach to matrix factorizations. Using these methods, we prove a conjecture for the effective superpotential of Herbst, Lazaroiu and Lerche for the A-type minimal models. We also consider the Landau-Ginzburg theory of the cubic torus where we show that the effective superpotential, given by the partition function, is consistent with the one obtained by summing up disk instantons in the mirror A-model. This is done by explicitly constructing the open-string mirror map.Comment: 57p, 7 figs, harvma

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 $\tan\beta$ 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.Comment: 16 pages, Latex2e, 2 eps figures. Some comments on the large (longitudinal) radius limit of the mass term at the origin are developed, and new references adde