We present a pedagogical overview of flux compactifications in string theory, from the basic
ideas to the most recent developments. We concentrate on closed-string fluxes in type-II …

These are notes based on a series of lectures given at the KITP workshop Quantum
Criticality and the AdS/CFT Correspondence in July, 2009. The goal of the lectures was to …

We investigate the embedding of brane inflation into stable compactifications of string
theory. At first sight a warped compactification geometry seems to produce a naturally flat …

Sasakian manifolds were first introduced in 1962. This book's main focus is on the intricate
relationship between Sasakian and Kähler geometries, especially when the Kähler structure …

We find the gravity dual of a marginal deformation of Script N= 4 super Yang Mills, and
discuss some of its properties. This deformation is intimately connected with an SL (2, Bbb …

We describe a technique which enables one to quickly compute an infinite number of toric
geometries and their dual quiver gauge theories. The central object in this construction is …

We develop a systematic and efficient method of counting single-trace and multi-trace BPS
operators with two supercharges, for world-volume gauge theories of N D-brane probes for …

We study a variational problem whose critical point determines the Reeb vector field for a
Sasaki–Einstein manifold. This extends our previous work on Sasakian geometry by lifting …

We provide a general set of rules for extracting the data defining a quiver gauge theory from
a given toric Calabi-Yau singularity. Our method combines information from the geometry …

We show that the Reeb vector, and hence in particular the volume, of a Sasaki–Einstein
metric on the base of a toric Calabi–Yau cone of complex dimension n may be computed by …