Dimers, Orientifolds, and Dynamical Supersymmetry Breaking

This thesis is devoted to the study of orientifolds and dynamical supersymmetry breaking in configurations of D-branes on toric Calabi-Yau singularities, through the lens of dimer models. We first review the basic ingredients of string theory that led to the formulation of gauge/gravity dualities in terms of dimers. Then, we discuss the non-abelian anomaly cancellation conditions for the supersymmetric gauge theories arising on D-branes and provide necessary geometric criteria to determine whether an orientifold projection can be safely introduced. We also find a new realization of orientifold projection without fixed loci in dimer models and expand on its physical features. We argue that it exhausts the possibilities of orientifolding dimer models. In the subsequent part of the thesis, we investigate dynamical supersymmetry breaking vacua in the same class of models and their typical instability along N=2 Coulomb branches. This leads us to formulate a no-go theorem against their stability based on geometrical features of the singularity, and then to establish a precise way to circumvent it. We eventually find the first instance of stable dynamical supersymmetry breaking vacuum in string theory from D-branes on a toric Calabi-Yau singularity, the Octagon.Doctorat en Sciences