The purpose of this paper is to solve a problem posed by Strominger in constructing smooth models of superstring theory with flux. These are given by non-Khler manifolds with torsion.

We explain how Polchinski's work on D-branes re-read from a noncommutative version of Grothendieck's equivalence of local geometries and function rings gives rise to an intrinsic prototype definition of D-branes (of B-type) as an Azumaya-type noncommutative space. Several originally open-string induced properties of D-branes can be reproduced solely by this intrinsic definition. We study also the moduli space of D0-branes on a commutative target space in this setup. Some of its features resembles gas of D0-branes in Vafa's work.

Strain fields provide a method of deformation measurement based on physics. Using these as a tool, we can analyze deformation of objects in a measurable way. We have developed a new morphing technique based on strain field interpolation. Shape shaking and squeezing, which often happen when using linear interpolation for morphing, do not arise in our approach. We have also developed a new method to create isomorphic meshes from corresponding objects in two images. Meshes generated by this method have much fewer triangles than other methods, which greatly decreases calculation loads in the morphing process.

In contrast to the usual quantum systems which have at most a finite number of open spectral gaps if they are periodic in more than one direction, periodic quantum graphs may have gaps arbitrarily high in the spectrum. This property of graph Hamiltonians, being generic in a sense, inspires the question about the existence of graphs with a finite and nonzero number of spectral gaps. We show that the answer depends on the vertex couplings together with commensurability of the graph edges. A finite and nonzero number of gaps is excluded for graphs with scale invariant couplings; on the other hand, we demonstrate that graphs featuring a finite nonzero number of gaps do exist, illustrating the claim on the example of a rectangular lattice with a suitably tuned -coupling at the vertices.

The leading term of the ground state energy/particle of a dilute gas of bosons with mass m in the thermodynamic limit is $ 2\pi \hbar^2 a \varrho/m$ when the density of the gas is $ \varrho$, the interaction potential is non-negative and the scattering length $a$ is positive. In this paper, we generalize the upper bound part of this result to any interaction potential with positive scattering length, i.e, $a > 0$ and the lower bound part to some interaction potentials with shallow and/or narrow negative parts.