Exploring the SO(32) Heterotic String

We give a complete classification of Z_N orbifold compactification of the heterotic SO(32) string theory and show its potential for realistic model building. The appearance of spinor representations of SO(2n) groups is analyzed in detail. We conclude that the heterotic SO(32) string constitutes an interesting part of the string landscape both in view of model constructions and the question of heterotic-type I duality.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figure

The Higgs Mechanism in Heterotic Orbifolds

We study spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking in the framework of orbifold compactifcations of heterotic string theory. In particular we investigate the electroweak symmetry breakdown via the Higgs mechanism. Such a breakdown can be achieved by continuous Wilson lines. Exploiting the geometrical properties of this scheme we develop a new technique which simplifies the analysis used in previous discussions.Comment: 38 pages, 10 figure

Possible astrophysical signatures of heavy stable neutral relics in supergravity models

We consider heavy stable neutral particles in the context of supergravity and show that a gravitationally suppressed inflaton decay can produce such particles in cosmologically interesting abundances within a wide mass range $10^3 {\rm GeV} \leq m_X \leq 10^{11} {\rm GeV}$. In gravity-mediated supersymmetry breaking models, a heavy particle can decay into its superpartner and a photon-photino pair or a gravitino. Such decays only change the identity of a possible dark matter candidate. However, for $10^3 {\rm GeV} \leq m_X \leq 10^7 {\rm GeV}$, astrophysical bounds from gamma-ray background and photodissociation of light elements can be more stringent than the overclosure bound, thus ruling out the particle as a dark matter candidate.Comment: 12 page

Supergravity Inflation Free from Harmful Relics

We present a realistic supergravity inflation model which is free from the overproduction of potentially dangerous relics in cosmology, namely moduli and gravitinos which can lead to the inconsistencies with the predictions of baryon asymmetry and nucleosynthesis. The radiative correction turns out to play a crucial role in our analysis which raises the mass of supersymmetry breaking field to intermediate scale. We pay a particular attention to the non-thermal production of gravitinos using the non-minimal Kahler potential we obtained from loop correction. This non-thermal gravitino production however is diminished because of the relatively small scale of inflaton mass and small amplitudes of hidden sector fields.Comment: 10 pages, revtex, 1 eps figure, references added, conclusion section expande

Geometric scaling in high-energy QCD at nonzero momentum transfer

We show how one can obtain geometric scaling properties from the Balitsky-Kovchegov (BK) equation. We start by explaining how, this property arises for the b-independent BK equation. We show that it is possible to extend this model to the full BK equation including momentum transfer. The saturation scale behaves like max(q,Q_T) where q is the momentum transfer and Q_T a typical scale of the target.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Talk given by G. Soyez at the "Rencontres de Moriond", 12-19 March 2005, La Thuile, Ital

Small SUSY phases in string-inspired supergravity

In supersymmetric models, there are new CP violating phases which, if unsuppressed, would give a too large neutron electric dipole moment. We examine the possibility of small SUSY phases in string-inspired supergravity models in which supersymmetry is broken by the auxiliary components of the dilaton and moduli superfields. It is found that the SUSY phases can be suppressed by a small factor governing the breakdown of the approximate Peccei Quinn symmetries nonlinearly realized for the moduli superfields that participate in supersymmetry breaking. In many cases, the symmetry breaking factors are exponentially small for moderately large values of the moduli, leading to small phase values in a natural way.Comment: 15pages, Latex, SNUTP 93-8

Gauged extended supergravity without cosmological constant: no-scale structure and supersymmetry breaking

We consider the interplay of duality symmetries and gauged isometries of supergravity models giving N-extended, spontaneously broken supergravity with a no-scale structure. Some examples, motivated by superstring and M-theory compactifications are described.Comment: AMS-LaTeX, 16 pages. Invited paper to appear in the review section of the IJMP

Higher-dimensional perturbations of the vacuum energy density

The vacuum energy density arising from the broken supersymmetry of the (standard-model) fields living on a brane cannot be fully "off-loaded" to the bulk: even assuming the existence of an effective "self-tuning" mechanism, a small fraction of the transferred energy "bunces back" to the brane, as a backreaction of the supersymmetry breaking gravitationally transmitted to the bulk. In that case the SUSY scale of the brane has to be bounded, to guarantee the consistency of such a residual energy density with current large-scale phenomonological constraints. This effect is illustrated by computing the zero-point energies of the tower of (higher-dimensional) massive states associated to tensor metric fluctuations on a brane embedded in a warped bulk geometry, and it is shown to be independent of the number of compact or non-compact extra dimensions.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, to appear in JHE

Longevity of supersymmetric flat directions

We examine the fate of supersymmetric flat directions. We argue that the non-perturbative decay of the flat direction via preheating is an unlikely event. In order to address this issue, first we identify the physical degrees of freedom and their masses in presence of a large flat direction VEV (Vacuum Expectation Value). We explicitly show that the (complex) flat direction and its fermionic partner are the only light {\it physical} fields in the spectrum. If the flat direction VEV is much larger than the weak scale, and it has a rotational motion, there will be no resonant particle production at all. The case of multiple flat directions is more involved. We illustrate that in many cases of physical interest, the situation becomes effectively the same as that of a single flat direction, or collection of independent single directions. In such cases preheating is not relevant. In an absence of a fast non-perturbative decay, the flat direction survives long enough to affect thermalization in supersymmetric models as described in hep-ph/0505050 and hep-ph/0512227. It can also ``terminate'' an early stage of non-perturbative inflaton decay as discussed in hep-ph/0603244.Comment: 9 revtex pages, v3: expanded discussion on two flat directions, minor modifications, conclusions unchange

Cosmological constant in SUGRA models and the multiple point principle

The tiny order of magnitude of the cosmological constant is sought to be explained in a model involving the following ingredients: supersymmetry breaking in N=1 supergravity and the multiple point principle. We demonstrate the viability of this scenario in the minimal SUGRA model.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, Talk given at Nuclear Physics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Conference on Physics of Fundamental Interactions, Moscow, Russia, 2-6 Dec 2002; to appear in Phys.Atom.Nuc