### Research of Washington Taylor


Taylor's research program in recent years has focused on developing a
global understanding of the space of supersymmetric string vacua and
supergravity theories.  
Primary specific goals of this program currently include:

* Attaining a global picture of the set of 4D F-theory vacua with N = 1 supersymmetry
* Attaining a global picture of the set of elliptic Calabi-Yau threefolds
* Developing a systematic understanding of the correspondence between geometry and physics for F-theory compactifications to 4D and 6D
* Understanding how supersymmetric extensions of the standard model can be realized in the geometric approach of F-theory.

#### General background

In theories with many space-time dimensions,
supersymmetry strongly constrains the set of possible theories, so
that the set of quantum consistent theories of gravity with
supersymmetry matches closely with the set of possible string theory
vacua.  Studying these higher-dimensional theories has given tools for
the global characterization of the set of theories. Taylor and
collaborators are now applying analogous methods in four dimensions to
identify generic features in the large class of string theory vacua
described through "F-theory".  This work has also given rise to new
insights and progress on the long-standing mathematical problem of
classifying Calabi-Yau manifolds.  

*This content currently under construction*