Informal Pizza Seminar

Torsion and Supersymmetry Breaking

Brian Wecht

Institute for Advanced Study

Although Calabi-Yau manifolds are great, they are only a small set of what one can use to compactify string theory. I'll describe a popular alternative, called SU(3)xSU(3)-structure manifolds, where it is straightforward to understand supersymmetry breaking. In particular, I will show how one can relate auxiliary fields in the four-dimensional effective theory to information about the internal space. This talk will be fairly non-technical, and will be accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of SUSY and differential geometry.