A Kaluza-Klein inspired action for chiral p-forms and their anomalies

The dynamics of chiral p-forms can be captured by a lower-dimensional parity-violating action motivated by a Kaluza-Klein reduction on a circle. The massless modes are (p-1)-forms with standard kinetic terms and Chern-Simons couplings to the Kaluza-Klein vector of the background metric. The massive modes are p-forms charged under the Kaluza-Klein vector and admit parity-odd first-order kinetic terms. Gauge invariance is implemented by a Stueckelberg-like mechanism using (p-1)-forms. A Chern-Simons term for the Kaluza-Klein vector is generated at one loop by massive p-form modes. These findings are shown to be consistent with anomalies and supersymmetry for six-dimensional supergravity theories with chiral tensor multiplets.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Defect Branes

We discuss some general properties of "defect branes", i.e. branes of co-dimension two, in (toroidally compactified) IIA/IIB string theory. In particular, we give a full classification of the supersymmetric defect branes in dimensions 2 < D < 11 as well as their higher-dimensionalstring and M-theory origin as branes and a set of "generalized" Kaluza-Klein monopoles. We point out a relation between the generalized Kaluza-Klein monopole solutions and a particular type of mixed-symmetry tensors. These mixed-symmetry tensors can be defined at the linearized level as duals of the supergravity potentials that describe propagating degrees of freedom. It is noted that the number of supersymmetric defect branes is always twice the number of corresponding central charges in the supersymmetry algebra.Comment: Latex2e paper, 28 pages, no figures. Footnote adde

H-FGK formalism for black-hole solutions of N=2, d=4 and d=5 supergravity

We rewrite the Ferrara-Gibbons-Kallosh (FGK) black-hole effective action of N=2, d=4,5 supergravities coupled to vector multiplets, replacing the metric warp factor and the physical scalars with real variables that transform in the same way as the charges under duality transformations, which simplifies the equations of motion. For a given model, the form of the solution in these variables is the same for all spherically symmetric black holes, regardless of supersymmetry or extremality.Comment: 10 pages; v2: references added, some editing of the text, results unchanged; v3: references added as in the published versio

Fluxed M5-instantons in F-theory

We analyse the non-perturbative superpotential due to M5-brane instantons in F-theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau fourfolds. The M5 partition function is obtained via holomorphic factorisation by explicitly performing the sum over chiral 3-form fluxes. Comparison with the partition function of fluxed Euclidean D3-brane instantons in Type IIB orientifolds allows us to fix the spin structure on the intermediate Jacobian of the M5-instanton. We furthermore analyse the contribution of the M5-instanton to the superpotential in the presence of G4 gauge flux, where the superpotential is dressed with matter fields. We explicitly evaluate the pullback of G4 onto the M5-brane as a measure for the presence of charged instanton zero modes. This accounts for the M5 charge both under massless U(1)s, if present, and under what corresponds in Type II language to geometrically massive U(1)s.Comment: 47 pages. v3: refs. added, matches version published in Nuclear Physics

Consistent reductions from D=11 beyond Sasaki-Einstein

The most general class of warped AdS5 x M6 supersymmetric solutions in D=11 supergravity permit a consistent truncation to D=5 N=2 minimal gauged supergravity. Here we extend this truncation, for a particular subclass of M6 manifolds, to D=5 N=4 gauged supergravity coupled to two vector multiplets. We obtain the reduction ansatz by T-duality of a recently discussed type IIB truncation on a generic Sasaki-Einstein five-fold, which becomes non-trivial in D=11 and displays non-standard features due to the G-structure of the internal M6. Using this truncation, we construct two new classes of warped and unwarped non-supersymmetric AdS5 M-theory backgrounds. We also comment on possible extensions of the reduction ansatz to the general class of M6 geometries.Comment: Seven double column pages; v2: Acknowledgement added, version to be published in Phys. Lett.

On Type IIB moduli stabilization and N = 4, 8 supergravities

We analyze D = 4 compactifications of Type IIB theory with generic, geometric and non-geometric, dual fluxes turned on. In particular, we study N = 1 toroidal orbifold compactifications that admit an embedding of the untwisted sector into gauged N = 4, 8 supergravities. Truncations, spontaneous breaking of supersymmetry and the inclusion of sources are discussed. The algebraic identities satisfied by the supergravity gaugings are used to implement the full set of consistency constraints on the background fluxes. This allows to perform a generic study of N = 1 vacua and identify large regions of the parameter space that do not admit complete moduli stabilization. Illustrative examples of AdS and Minkowski vacua are presented.Comment: 48 pages, 1 figure. References added. Published in NP B 849 (2011) pp. 80-11