Intersecting Brane Worlds on Tori and Orbifolds

TL;DR

This paper reviews intersecting brane world models on tori and orbifolds, focusing on their construction, phenomenology, and issues like anomaly cancellation and moduli stabilization, aiming to realize Standard Model-like physics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of intersecting brane world constructions, analyzing their phenomenological features and stability issues, especially in relation to Standard Model and GUT physics.

Findings

Toroidal models exhibit run-away moduli due to gravitational backreaction.

Orbifold models can stabilize moduli, avoiding some instabilities.

Certain brane configurations approximate Standard Model and GUT physics.

Abstract

We review the construction and phenomenology of intersecting brane worlds. The breaking of chiral and supersymmetry together with a reduction of gauge symmetry by introducing D-branes at generic angles into type I or type II string compactifications is taken as a starting point for the engineering of phenomenologically appealing four-dimensional vacua. Examples that come very close to Standard Model and GUT physics are considered and issues like the cancellation of anomalies and the emergence of global symmetries studied in some detail. Concerning the gravitational backreaction, the perturbative potential generated at the disc level is shown to lead to a run-away instability of geometric moduli within the purely toroidal compactifications. It can at least partly be avoided in certain orbifold vacua, where the relevant moduli are frozen. These more restricted models still possess sufficient freedom to find semi-realistic brane world orbifolds.