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We consider a large class of branes in toric strip geometries, both non-periodic and periodic ones. For a fixed background geometry we show that partition functions for such branes can be reinterpreted, on one hand, as quiver generating series, and on the other hand as wave-functions in various polarizations. We determine operations on quivers, as well as $SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$ transformations, which correspond to changing positions of these branes. Our results prove integrality of BPS multiplicities associated to this class of branes, reveal how they transform under changes of polarization, and imply all other properties of brane amplitudes that follow from the relation to quivers., Comment: 42 pages, 15 figures

General Relativity and the $\Lambda$CDM framework are currently the standard lore and constitute the concordance paradigm. Nevertheless, long-standing open theoretical issues, as well as possible new observational ones arising from the explosive development of cosmology the last two decades, offer the motivation and lead a large amount of research to be devoted in constructing various extensions and modifications. All extended theories and scenarios are first examined under the light of theoretical consistency, and then are applied to various geometrical backgrounds, such as the cosmological and the spherical symmetric ones. Their predictions at both the background and perturbation levels, and concerning cosmology at early, intermediate and late times, are then confronted with the huge amount of observational data that astrophysics and cosmology are able to offer recently. Theories, scenarios and models that successfully and efficiently pass the above steps are classified as viable and are candidates for the description of Nature. We list the recent developments in the fields of gravity and cosmology, presenting the state of the art, high-lighting the open problems, and outlining the directions of future research. Its realization is performed in the framework of the COST European Action "Cosmology and Astrophysics Network for Theoretical Advances and Training Actions".

We argue that the T-duality phenomenon is not exclusively a stringy effect but it is relevant also in the context of the standard point particle dynamics. To illustrate the point, we construct a four-parametric family of four-dimensional electro-gravitational backgrounds such that the dynamics of a charged point particle in those backgrounds is insensitive to a particular permutation of the parameters although this very permutation does alter the background geometry. In particular, we find that a direct product of the Euclidean plane with the two-dimensional Euclidean black hole admits a point-particle T-dual with asymptotically negative curvature. For neutral particles, this point-particle T-duality picture gets slightly modified because the T-duality map is no longer defined everywhere but only on a dense open domain of the space of states. We suggest a possible interpretation of this phenomenon in terms of a point particle T-fold., 11 pages, a discussion of consistency conditions for the definition of T-folds is added

Exceptional field theories yield duality-covariant formulations of higher-dimensional supergravity. They have proven to be an efficient tool for the construction of consistent truncations around various background geometries. In this paper, we demonstrate how the formalism can moreover be turned into a powerful tool for computing the Kaluza-Klein mass spectra around these backgrounds. Most of these geometries have little to no remaining symmetries and their spectra are accessible to standard methods only in selected subsectors. The present formalism not only grants access to the full Kaluza-Klein spectra but also provides the scheme to identify the resulting mass eigenstates in higher dimensions. As a first illustration, we rederive in compact form the mass spectrum of IIB supergravity on $S^5$. We further discuss the application of our formalism to determine the mass spectra of higher Kaluza-Klein multiplets around the warped geometries corresponding to some prominent ${\cal N}=2$ and ${\cal N}=0$ AdS vacua in maximal supergravity., 45 pages; v2: published version with minor typos corrected