750 GeV Diphotons from a D3-brane

Motivated by the recently reported diphoton excess at 750 GeV observed by both CMS and ATLAS, we study string-based particle physics models which can accommodate this signal. Quite remarkably, although Grand Unified Theories in F-theory tend to impose tight restrictions on candidate extra sectors, the case of a probe D3-brane near an E-type Yukawa point naturally leads to a class of strongly coupled models capable of accommodating the observed signature. In these models, the visible sector is realized by intersecting 7-branes, and the 750 GeV resonance is a scalar modulus associated with motion of the D3-brane in the direction transverse to the Standard Model 7-branes. Integrating out heavy 3-7 string messenger states leads to dimension five operators for gluon fusion production and diphoton decays. Due to the unified structure of interactions, these models also predict that there should be additional decay channels to ZZ and Z gamma. We also comment on models with distorted unification, where both the production mechanism and decay channels can differ.Comment: v3: 12 pages, 1 figure, clarifications adde

Particle Physics Implications of F-theory

We review recent progress in realizing Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) in a strongly coupled formulation of type IIB string theory known as F-theory. Our main emphasis is on the expected low-energy phenomenology of a minimal class of F-theory GUTs. We introduce the primary ingredients in such constructions, and then present qualitative features of GUT models in this framework such as GUT breaking, doublet-triplet splitting, and proton decay. Next, we review proposals for realizing flavor hierarchies in the quark and lepton sectors. We discuss possible supersymmetry breaking scenarios, and their consequences for experiment, as well as geometrically minimal realizations of F-theory GUTs which incorporate most of these features.Comment: v2: 42 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Annu. Rev. Nuc. Part. Sci, improved formatting and small clarification