Domain walls, branes, and fluxes in string theory: New ideas on the cosmological constant problem, moduli stabilization, and vacuum connectedness

This thesis is devoted to the application of two string-theoretical models to three fundamental problems in theoretical physics. The first model is the self-tuning domain wall. We consider self-tuning as an approach to the cosmological constant problem. We then turn to the problems of moduli stabilization and vacuum connectedness, in this case focusing on the compactification of Type IIB string theory on the T6/Z 2 orientifold.;An essential ingredient of the cosmological constant problem is the dual interpretation of the same physical quantity as both the energy density of the vacuum and the curvature of spacetime. The mechanism of self-tuning severs this link. It operates in a model in which the familiar 3 + 1 dimensions are a domain wall in certain five-dimensional effective theories that naturally arise in string theory. Assuming either bulk supersymmetry or a restricted class of bulk interactions, we show that Poincare-invariant domain wall solutions persist for arbitrary values of the brane tension. Two drawbacks are the existence of naked singularities at a finite proper distance from the domain wall and of AdS and dS deformations of the flat solutions.;Historically, string moduli stabilization has been poorly understood since it generally involves intractable nonperturbative calculations. We study the T6/Z2 orientifold as an example of a novel class of vacua in which most moduli are stabilized perturbatively. The superpotential is perturbatively generated by a discrete choice of NS and RR three-form flux in the compact geometry, and the equations of motion are explicitly soluble to give vacua with N = 0 through N = 4 supersymmetry in four dimensions.;Whatever the mechanism of string vacuum selection, we expect this mechanism to come with a notion of vacuum connectedness, and to act separately in each superselection sector of connected vacua. We propose that two vacua might be connected if there exist bubbles of one vacuum inside of the other with tension small in Planck units. We then show that pairs of the T 6/Z2 vacua, including those that preserve different amounts of supersymmetry, can be connected by nonstatic spherical domain walls composed of wrapped branes.