Standard Model Engineering with Intersecting Branes

I briefly describe the recent construction of the first specific string D-brane models yielding just the SM massless fermion spectrum. One of the most remarkable facts predicted by these constructions is that the global symmetries of the SM like Baryon and Lepton numbers as well as the axial $U(1)_A$ are gauged symmetries whose anomalies are cancelled by a Green-Schwarz mechanism only in the case of three quark-lepton generations. Proton stability and the Dirac nature of neutrino masses are thus a prediction of these theories. This is work done in collaboration with Fernando Marchesano and Raul Rabadan.Comment: 10 pages, Latex file, no figures. Contribution to the proceedings of SUSY-01, Dubna (Russia), June 200

SUSY-breaking Soft Terms in a MSSM Magnetized D7-brane Model

We compute the SUSY-breaking soft terms in a magnetized D7-brane model with MSSM-like spectrum, under the general assumption of non-vanishing auxiliary fields of the dilaton and Kahler moduli. As a particular scenario we discuss SUSY breaking triggered by ISD or IASD 3-form fluxes.Comment: Latex, 27 pages, v2: added reference

TeV-Scale Stringy Signatures at the Electron-positron Collider

We investigate the TeV-scale stringy signals of the four-fermion scattering at the electron-positron collider with the center of mass energy 500-1000 GeV. The nature of the stringy couplings leads to distinguishable asymmetries comparing to the other new physics models. Specifically, the stringy states in the four-fermion scattering at the leading-order corrections are of spin-1 and 2 with the chiral couplings inherited from the gauge bosons identified as the zeroth-mode string states. The angular left-right, forward-backward, center-edge asymmetries and the corresponding polarized-beam asymmetries are investigated. The low-energy stringy corrections are compared to the ones induced by the Kaluza-Klein (KK) gravitons. The angular left-right asymmetry of the scattering with the final states of u and d-type quarks, namely c and b, shows significant deviations from the Standard Model values. The center-edge and forward-backward asymmetries for all final-states fermions also show significant deviations from the corresponding Standard Model values. The differences between the signatures induced by the stringy corrections and the KK gravitons are appreciable in both angular left-right and forward-backward asymmetries.Comment: 22 pages,8 figures, expanded content, added reference

Electroweak Breaking in Supersymmetric Models

We discuss the mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking in supersymmetric versions of the standard model. After briefly reviewing the possible sources of supersymmetry breaking, we show how the required pattern of symmetry breaking can automatically result from the structure of quantum corrections in the theory. We demonstrate that this radiative breaking mechanism works well for a heavy top quark and can be combined in unified versions of the theory with excellent predictions for the running couplings of the model. (To be published in ``Perspectives in Higgs Physics'', G. Kane editor.)Comment: 47 page

Instanton induced charged fermion and neutrino masses in a minimal Standard Model scenario from intersecting D-branes

String instanton Yukawa corrections from Euclidean D-branes are investigated in an effective Standard Model theory obtained from the minimal U(3)xU(2)xU(1) D-brane configuration. In the case of the minimal chiral and Higgs spectrum, it is found that superpotential contributions are induced by string instantons for the perturbatively forbidden entries of the up and down quark mass matrices. Analogous non-perturbative effects generate heavy Majorana neutrino masses and a Dirac neutrino texture with factorizable Yukawa couplings. For this latter case, a specific example is worked out where it is shown how this texture can reconcile the neutrino data.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure

Neutrino Masses and Mixings from String Theory Instantons

We study possible patterns of neutrino masses and mixings in string models in which Majorana neutrino masses are generated by a certain class of string theory instantons recently considered in the literature. These instantons may generate either directly the dim=5 Weinberg operator or right-handed neutrino Majorana masses, both with a certain flavour-factorised form. A hierarchy of neutrino masses naturally appears from the exponentially suppressed contributions of different instantons. The flavour structure is controlled by string amplitudes involving neutrino fields and charged instanton zero modes. For some simple choices for these amplitudes one finds neutrino mixing patterns consistent with experimental results. In particular, we find that a tri-bimaximal mixing pattern is obtained for simple symmetric values of the string correlators.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figure