D-Branes on Calabi-Yau Manifolds

Abstract

In this review we study BPS D-branes on Calabi-Yau threefolds. Such D-branes naturally divide into two sets called A-branes and B-branes which are most easily understood from topological field theory. The main aim of this paper is to provide a self-contained guide to the derived category approach to B-branes and the idea of Pi-stability. We argue that this mathematical machinery is hard to avoid for a proper understanding of B-branes. A-branes and B-branes are related in a very complicated and interesting way which ties in with the ``homological mirror symmetry'' conjecture of Kontsevich. We motivate and exploit this form of mirror symmetry. The examples of the quintic 3-fold, flops and orbifolds are discussed at some length. In the latter case we describe the role of McKay quivers in the context of D-branes. These notes are to be submitted to the proceedings of TASI03.