We study the large volume limit of the scalar potential in Calabi-Yau flux compactifications of type IIB string theory. Under general circumstances there exists a limit in which the potential approaches zero from below, with an associated non-supersymmetric AdS minimum at exponentially large volume. Both this and its de Sitter uplift are tachyon-free, thereby fixing all Kähler and complex structure moduli. Also, for the class of vacua described in this paper, the gravitino mass is independent of the flux discretuum, whereas the ratio of the string scale to the 4d Planck scale is hierarchically small but flux dependent. The inclusion of α ′ corrections plays a crucial role in the structure of the potential. We illustrate these ideas through explicit computations for a particular Calabi-Yau manifold. 1

We present an explicit calculation of the spectrum of a general class of string models, corresponding to Calabi-Yau flux compactifications with h 1,2 > h 1,1 > 1 with leading perturbative and non-perturbative corrections, in which all geometric moduli are stabilised as in hep-th/0502058. The volume is exponentially large, leading to a range of string scales from the Planck mass to the TeV scale, realising for the first time the large extra dimensions scenario in string theory. We provide a general analysis of the relevance of perturbative and non-perturbative effects and the regime of validity of the effective field theory. We compute the spectrum in the moduli sector finding a hierarchy of masses depending on inverse powers of the volume. We also compute soft supersymmetry breaking terms for particles living on D3 and D7 branes. We find a hierarchy of soft terms corresponding to 'volume dominated' F-term supersymmetry breaking. Fterms for Kähler moduli dominate both those for dilaton and complex structure moduli and D-terms or other de Sitter lifting terms. This is the first class of string models in which soft supersymmetry breaking terms are computed after fixing all geometric moduli. We outline several possible applications of our results, both for cosmology and phenomenology and point out the differences with the less generic KKLT vacua.

We propose a bottom-up approach to the building of particle physics models from string theory. Our building blocks are Type II D-branes which we combine appropriately to reproduce desirable features of a particle theory model: 1) Chirality ; 2) Standard Model group ; 3) N = 1 or N = 0 supersymmetry ; 4) Three quark-lepton generations. We start such a program by studying configurations of D = 10, Type IIB D3-branes located at singularities. We study in detail the case of Z Z N N = 1, 0 orbifold singularities leading to the SM group or some left-right symmetric extension. In general, tadpole cancellation conditions require the presence of additional branes, e.g. D7-branes. For the N = 1 supersymmetric case the unique twist leading to three quark-lepton generations is Z Z 3 , predicting sin 2 θ W = 3/14 = 0.21. The models obtained are the simplest semirealistic string models ever built. In the non-supersymmetric case there is a three-generation model for each Z Z N , N > 4, but the Weinberg angle is in general too small. One can obtain a large class of D = 4 compact models by considering the above structure embedded into a Calabi Yau compactification. We explicitly construct examples of such compact models using Z Z 3 toroidal orbifolds and orientifolds, and discuss their properties. In these examples, global cancellation of RR charge may be achieved by adding anti-branes stuck at the fixed points, leading to models with hidden sector gravity-induced supersymmetry breaking. More general frameworks, like F-theory compactifications, allow completely N = 1 supersymmetric embeddings of our local structures, as we show in an explicit example.

In string theory it is known that abelian isometries in the σ-model lead to target space duality. We generalize this duality to backgrounds with non-abelian isometries. The procedure we follow consists of gauging the isometries of the original action and constraining the field strength F to vanish. This new action generates dual theories by integrating over either the Lagrange multipliers that set F = 0 or the gauge fields. We find that this new duality transformation maps spaces with non-abelian isometries to spaces that may have no isometries at all. This suggests that duality symmetries in string theories need to be understood in a more general context without regard to the existence of continuous isometries on the target space (this is also indicated by the existence of duality in string compactifications on Calabi-Yau manifolds which have no continuous isometries). Physically interesting examples to which our formalism apply are the Schwarzschild metric and the 4D charged dilatonic black hole. For these spherically symmetric black holes in four dimensions, the dual backgrounds are presented and explicitly shown to be new solutions of the leading order string equations. Some of these new backgrounds are found to have no continuous isometries (except for time translations) and also have naked singularities.

We propose a new mechanism for obtaining de Sitter vacua in type IIB string theory compactified on (orientifolded) Calabi-Yau manifolds similar to those recently studied by Kachru, Kallosh, Linde and Trivedi (KKLT). dS vacuum appears in KKLT model after uplifting an AdS vacuum by adding an anti-D3-brane, which explicitly breaks supersymmetry. We accomplish the same goal by adding fluxes of gauge fields within the D7-branes, which induce a D-term potential in the effective 4D action. In this way we obtain dS space as a spontaneously broken vacuum from a purely supersymmetric 4D action. We argue that our approach can be directly extended to heterotic string vacua, with the dilaton potential obtained from a combination of gaugino condensation and the D-terms generated by anomalous U(1) gauge groups.