Recent results in string phenomenology

Motivated by recent discussions of the string-theory landscape, we propose field-theoretic realizations of models with large numbers of vacua. These models contain multiple U(l) gauge groups, and can be interpreted as deconstructed versions of higher-dimensional gauge theory models with fluxes in the compact space. We find that the vacuum structure of these models is very rich, defined by parameter-space regions with different classes of stable vacua separated by boundaries. We find that this landscape picture evolves with energy, allowing vacua to undergo phase transitions as they cross the boundaries between different regions in the landscape.