Discovering new supersymmetric theories, to better explain our Universe

During my Ph.D., carried under the supervision of Prof. Luca Martucci, I investigated the effective field theories that originate from String Theory, their phenomenological predictions, and their limitations. I especially focused on four-dimensional effective theories exhibiting N=1 supersymmetry. These theories, endowed with the minimal amount of supersymmetry, are prime candidates to explain the (ultraviolet-completion of the) Physics that we observe.

I devoted a large part of my Ph.D. to constructing theories with N=1 supersymmetry from first principles, and including objects that were never included before. Exploiting the so-called superspace formalism, we were able to compute the general N=1 supersymmetric action that includes extended objects, such as strings, membranes, three-branes, and junctions thereof. These investigations culminated in the following work

  • How many fluxes fit in an EFT?
    Stefano Lanza, Fernando Marchesano, Luca Martucci, Dmitri Sorokin
    Published in: JHEP 10 (2019) 110
    PDF, arXiv, INSPIRE-HEP

Here, the aforementioned general N=1 supersymmetric action was utilized to illustrate how effects that String Theory predicts – such as tadpole and Freed-Witten anomaly cancellations – are realized purely from a four- dimensional perspective. These results are thus crucial in order to better understand how the physics of our Universe is connected to that predicted by String Theory.

If you are interested in the details about this research program, you may take a look at my Ph.D. thesis, where I presented the above results with a pedagogical approach:

  • Exploring the Landscape of effective field theories
    Stefano Lanza
    Ph.D. thesis
    PDF, arXiv, INSPIRE-HEP



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