Progress in D‐brane model building

The state of the art in D‐brane model building is briefly reviewed, focusing on recent achievements in the construction of D = 4 = 1 type II string vacua with semi‐realistic gauge sectors. Such progress relies on a better understanding of the spectrum of BPS D‐branes, the effective field theory obtained from them and the explicit construction of vacua. We first consider D‐branes in standard Calabi‐Yau compactifications, and then the more involved case of compactifications with fluxes. We discuss how the non‐trivial interplay between D‐branes and fluxes modifies the previous model‐building rules, as well as provides new possibilities to connect string theory to particle physics.