Consistent truncation of d = 11 supergravity on AdS_4 x S^7

We study the system of equations derived twenty five years ago by B. de Wit and the first author [Nucl. Phys. B281 (1987) 211] as conditions for the consistent truncation of eleven-dimensional supergravity on AdS_4 x S^7 to gauged N = 8 supergravity in four dimensions. By exploiting the E_7(7) symmetry, we determine the most general solution to this system at each point on the coset space E_7(7)/SU(8). We show that invariants of the general solution are given by the fluxes in eleven-dimensional supergravity. This allows us to both clarify the explicit non-linear ansatze for the fluxes given previously and to fill a gap in the original proof of the consistent truncation. These results are illustrated with several examples.Comment: 41 pages, typos corrected, published versio

The Tensor Hierarchies of Pure N=2,d=4,5,6 Supergravities

We study the supersymmetric tensor hierarchy of pure (gauged) N=2,d=4,5,6 supergravity and compare them with those of the pure, ungauged, theories (worked out by Gomis and Roest for d=5) and the predictions of the Kac-Moody approach made by Kleinschmidt and Roest. We find complete agreement in the ungauged case but we also find that, after gauging, new Stueckelberg symmetries reduce the number of independent "physical" top-forms. The analysis has to be performed to all orders in fermion fields. We discuss the construction of the worldvolume effective actions for the p-branes which are charged with respect to the (p+1)-form potentials and the relations between the tensor hierarchies and p-branes upon dimensional reduction.Comment: LaTeX2e file, 20 pages, 1 figure Results refined by extension of the analysis to all orders in fermion

Minimal Stability in Maximal Supergravity

Recently, it has been shown that maximal supergravity allows for non-supersymmetric AdS critical points that are perturbatively stable. We investigate this phenomenon of stability without supersymmetry from the sGoldstino point of view. In particular, we calculate the projection of the mass matrix onto the sGoldstino directions, and derive the necessary conditions for stability. Indeed we find a narrow window allowing for stable SUSY breaking points. As a by-product of our analysis, we find that it seems impossible to perturb supersymmetric critical points into non-supersymmetric ones: there is a minimal amount of SUSY breaking in maximal supergravity.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figure. v2: two typos corrected, published versio

A Massive S-duality in 4 dimensions

We reduce the Type IIA supergravity theory with a generalized Scherk-Schwarz ansatz that exploits the scaling symmetry of the dilaton, the metric and the NS 2-form field. The resulting theory is a new massive, gauged supergravity theory in four dimensions with a massive 2-form field and a massive 1-form field. We show that this theory is S-dual to a theory with a massive vector field and a massive 2-form field, which are dual to the massive 2-form and 1-form fields in the original theory, respectively. The S-dual theory is shown to arise from a Scherk-Schwarz reduction of the heterotic theory. Hence we establish a massive, S-duality type relation between the IIA theory and the heterotic theory in four dimensions. We also show that the Lagrangian for the new four dimensional theory can be put in the most general form of a D=4, N=4 gauged Lagrangian found by Schon and Weidner, in which (part of) the SL(2) group has been gauged.Comment: 20 pages, references adde

Lectures on Gauged Supergravity and Flux Compactifications

The low-energy effective theories describing string compactifications in the presence of fluxes are so-called gauged supergravities: deformations of the standard abelian supergravity theories. The deformation parameters can be identified with the various possible (geometric and non-geometric) flux components. In these lecture notes we review the construction of gauged supergravities in a manifestly duality covariant way and illustrate the construction in several examples.Comment: 48 pages, lectures given at the RTN Winter School on Strings, Supergravity and Gauge Theories, CERN, January 200

N=2 supergravity in five dimensions revisited

We construct matter-coupled N=2 supergravity in five dimensions, using the superconformal approach. For the matter sector we take an arbitrary number of vector-, tensor- and hyper-multiplets. By allowing off-diagonal vector-tensor couplings we find more general results than currently known in the literature. Our results provide the appropriate starting point for a systematic search for BPS solutions, and for applications of M-theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau manifolds with fluxes.Comment: 35 pages; v.2: A sign changed in a bilinear fermion term in (5.7

On the Irreducible BRST Quantization of Spin-5/2 Gauge Fields

Spin-5/2 gauge fields are quantized in an irreducible way within both the BRST and BRST-anti-BRST manners. To this end, we transform the reducible generating set into an irreducible one, such that the physical observables corresponding to these two formulations coincide. The gauge-fixing procedure emphasizes on the one hand the differences among our procedure and the results obtained in the literature, and on the other hand the equivalence between our BRST and BRST-anti-BRST approaches.Comment: 12 pages, latex 2.09, no figure

Transverse nucleon structure and diagnostics of hard parton-parton processes at LHC

We propose a new method to determine at what transverse momenta particle production in high-energy pp collisions is governed by hard parton-parton processes. Using information on the transverse spatial distribution of partons obtained from hard exclusive processes in ep/gamma p scattering, we evaluate the impact parameter distribution of pp collisions with a hard parton-parton process as a function of p_T of the produced parton (jet). We find that the average pp impact parameters in such events depend very weakly on p_T in the range 2 < p_T < few 100 GeV, while they are much smaller than those in minimum-bias inelastic collisions. The impact parameters in turn govern the observable transverse multiplicity in such events (in the direction perpendicular to the trigger particle or jet). Measuring the transverse multiplicity as a function of p_T thus provides an effective tool for determining the minimum p_T for which a given trigger particle originates from a hard parton-parton process. Additional tests of the proposed geometric correlations are possible by measuring the dependence on the trigger rapidity. Various strategies for implementing this method are outlined.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Supersymmetry on AdS3 and AdS4

We consider a supersymmetric extension of the algebra associated with three and four dimensional Anti de Sitter space. A representation of the supersymmetry operators in superspace is given. Supersymmetry invariant models are constructed for the superspace associated with AdS3.Comment: 14 pages, no figures. Final published version. Now includes a discussion of the relation of our approach to previous work on supersymmetry in AdS space

The R-map and the Coupling of N=2 Tensor Multiplets in 5 and 4 Dimensions

We study the dimensional reduction of five dimensional N=2 Yang-Mills-Einstein supergravity theories (YMESGT) coupled to tensor multiplets. The resulting 4D theories involve first order interactions among tensor and vector fields with mass terms. If the 5D gauge group, K, does not mix the 5D tensor and vector fields, the 4D tensor fields can be integrated out in favor of 4D vector fields and the resulting theory is dual to a standard 4D YMESGT. The gauge group has a block diagonal symplectic embedding and is a semi-direct product of the 5D gauge group K with a Heisenberg group of dimension (2P+1), where 2P is the number of tensor fields in five dimensions. There exists an infinite family of theories, thus obtained, whose gauge groups are pp-wave contractions of the simple noncompact groups of type SO*(2M). If, on the other hand, the 5D gauge group does mix the 5D tensor and vector fields, the resulting 4D theory is dual to a 4D YMESGT whose gauge group does, in general,NOT have a block diagonal symplectic embedding and involves additional topological terms. The scalar potentials of the dimensionally reduced theories naturally have some of the ingredients that were found necessary for stable de Sitter ground states. We comment on the relation between the known 5D and 4D, N=2 supergravities with stable de Sitter ground states.Comment: 42 pages;latex fil