World-volume Effective Action of Exotic Five-brane in M-theory

We study the world-volume effective action of an exotic five-brane, known as the M-theory 5${}^3$-brane (M5${}^3$-brane) in eleven dimensions. The supermultiplet of the world-volume theory is the $\mathcal{N} = (2, 0)$ tensor multiplet in six dimensions. The world-volume action contains three Killing vectors $\hat{k}_{\hat{I}} {}^M \ (\hat{I} =1,2,3)$ associated with the $U(1)^3$ isometry. We find the effective T-duality rule for the eleven-dimensional backgrounds that transforms the M5-brane effective action to that of the M5${}^3$-brane. We also show that our action provides the source term for the M5${}^3$-brane geometry in eleven-dimensional supergravityComment: 23 pages, comments and references added, version published in JHE

Rod-structure classification of gravitational instantons with U(1)xU(1) isometry

The rod-structure formalism has played an important role in the study of black holes in D=4 and 5 dimensions with RxU(1)^{D-3} isometry. In this paper, we apply this formalism to the study of four-dimensional gravitational instantons with U(1)xU(1) isometry, which could serve as spatial backgrounds for five-dimensional black holes. We first introduce a stronger version of the rod structure with the rod directions appropriately normalised, and show how the regularity conditions can be read off from it. Requiring the absence of conical and orbifold singularities will in general impose periodicity conditions on the coordinates, and we illustrate this by considering known gravitational instantons in this class. Some previous results regarding certain gravitational instantons are clarified in the process. Finally, we show how the rod-structure formalism is able to provide a classification of gravitational instantons, and speculate on the existence of possible new gravitational instantons.Comment: 43 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX; minor changes made and reference added, published versio

Toda fields of SO(3) hyper-Kahler metrics and free field realizations

The Eguchi-Hanson, Taub-NUT and Atiyah-Hitchin metrics are the only complete non-singular SO(3)-invariant hyper-Kahler metrics in four dimensions. The presence of a rotational SO(2) isometry allows for their unified treatment based on solutions of the 3-dim continual Toda equation. We determine the Toda potential in each case and examine the free field realization of the corresponding solutions, using infinite power series expansions. The Atiyah-Hitchin metric exhibits some unusual features attributed to topological properties of the group of area preserving diffeomorphisms. The construction of a descending series of SO(2)-invariant 4-dim regular hyper-Kahler metrics remains an interesting question.Comment: A few typos have been corrected; final versio

Large superconformal near-horizons from M-theory

We report on a classification of supersymmetric solutions to 11D supergravity with $SO(2,2) \times SO(3)$ isometry, which are AdS/CFT dual to 2D CFTs with $\mathcal{N} = (0,4)$ supersymmetry. We recover the Maldacena, Strominger, Witten (MSW) near-horizon with small superconformal symmetry and identify a class of $AdS_3 \times S^2 \times S^2 \times CY_2$ geometries with emergent large superconformal symmetry. This exhausts known compact geometries. Compactification of M-theory on $CY_2$ results in a vacuum of 7D supergravity with large superconformal symmetry, providing a candidate near-horizon for an extremal black hole and a potential new setting to address microstates.Comment: 5 pages; v2 6 pages, catchier title, rewritten introduction, references added, details of consistent truncation from 11D to 7D supergravity added, conclusions unchange

Supersymmetric IIB Solutions with Schr\"{o}dinger Symmetry

We find a class of non-relativistic supersymmetric solutions of IIB supergravity with non-trivial B-field that have dynamical exponent n=2 and are invariant under the Schrodinger group. For a general Sasaki-Einstein internal manifold with U(1)^3 isometry, the solutions have two real supercharges. When the internal manifold is S^5, the number of supercharges can be four. We also find a large class of non-relativistic scale invariant type IIB solutions with dynamical exponents different from two. The explicit solutions and the values of the dynamical exponents are determined by vector eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the Laplacian on an Einstein manifold.Comment: 28 pages, LaTe