5,939 research outputs found
New Supersymmetrizations of the Generalized KdV Hierarchies
Recently we investigated a new supersymmetrization procedure for the KdV
hierarchy inspired in some recent work on supersymmetric matrix models. We
extend this procedure here for the generalized KdV hierarchies. The resulting
supersymmetric hierarchies are generically nonlocal, except for the case of
Boussinesque which we treat in detail. The resulting supersymmetric hierarchy
is integrable and bihamiltonian and contains the Boussinesque hierarchy as a
subhierarchy. In a particular realization, we extend it by defining
supersymmetric odd flows. We end with some comments on a slight modification of
this supersymmetrization which yields local equations for any generalized KdV
hierarchy.Comment: 10 pages, uuencoded compressed tar'd .dvi file, Bonn-HE-93-1
D-brane charge, flux quantisation and relative (co)homology
We reconsider the problem of U(1) flux and D0-charge for D-branes in the WZW
model and investigate the relationship between the different definitions that
have been proposed recently. We identify the D0-charge as a particular
reduction of a class in the relative cohomology of the group modulo the
D-submanifold. We investigate under which conditions this class is equivalent
to the first Chern class of a line bundle on the D-submanifold and we find that
in general there is an obstruction given by the cohomology class of the NS
3-form. Therefore we conclude that for topologically nontrivial B-fields, there
is strictly speaking no U(1) gauge field on the D-submanifold. Nevertheless the
ambiguity in the flux is not detected by the D0-charge. This has a natural
interpretation in terms of gerbes.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures (v2: cosmetic changes and definition of relative
de Rham complex
The return of the four- and five-dimensional preons
We prove the existence of 3/4-BPS preons in four- and five-dimensional gauged
supergravities by explicitly constructing them as smooth quotients of the AdS_4
and AdS_5 maximally supersymmetric backgrounds, respectively. This result
illustrates how the spacetime topology resurrects a fraction of supersymmetry
previously ruled out by the local analysis of the Killing spinor equations.Comment: 10 pages (a minor imprecision has been corrected
Half-BPS quotients in M-theory: ADE with a twist
We classify Freund-Rubin backgrounds of eleven-dimensional supergravity of
the form AdS_4 x X^7 which are at least half BPS; equivalently, smooth
quotients of the round 7-sphere by finite subgroups of SO(8) which admit an
(N>3)-dimensional subspace of Killing spinors. The classification is given in
terms of pairs consisting of an ADE subgroup of SU(2) and an automorphism
defining its embedding in SO(8). In particular we find novel half-BPS quotients
associated with the subgroups of type D_n (for n>5), E_7 and E_8 and their
outer automorphisms.Comment: 16 pages; V2: notational inconsistencies addressed, final version to
be published in JHE
Supersymmetry and homogeneity of M-theory backgrounds
We describe the construction of a Lie superalgebra associated to an arbitrary
supersymmetric M-theory background, and discuss some examples. We prove that
for backgrounds with more than 24 supercharges, the bosonic subalgebra acts
locally transitively. In particular, we prove that backgrounds with more than
24 supersymmetries are necessarily (locally) homogeneous.Comment: 19 pages (Erroneous Section 6.3 removed from the paper.
Penrose limits of Lie Branes and a Nappi--Witten braneworld
Departing from the observation that the Penrose limit of AdS_3 x S^3 is a
group contraction in the sense of Inonu and Wigner, we explore the relation
between the symmetric D-branes of AdS_3 x S^3 and those of its Penrose limit, a
six-dimensional symmetric plane wave analogous to the four-dimensional
Nappi--Witten spacetime. Both backgrounds are Lie groups admitting bi-invariant
lorentzian metrics and symmetric D-branes wrap their (twisted) conjugacy
classes. We determine the (twisted and untwisted) symmetric D-branes in the
plane wave background and we prove the existence of a space-filling D5-brane
and, separately, of a foliation by D3-branes with the geometry of the
Nappi--Witten spacetime which can be understood as the Penrose limit of the
AdS_2 x S^2 D3-brane in AdS_3 x S^3. Parenthetically we also derive a simple
criterion for a symmetric plane wave to be isometric to a lorentzian Lie group.
In particular we observe that the maximally supersymmetric plane wave in IIB
string theory is isometric to a lorentzian Lie group, whereas the one in
M-theory is not.Comment: 21 pages (v2: references added
On the maximal superalgebras of supersymmetric backgrounds
In this note we give a precise definition of the notion of a maximal
superalgebra of certain types of supersymmetric supergravity backgrounds,
including the Freund-Rubin backgrounds, and propose a geometric construction
extending the well-known construction of its Killing superalgebra. We determine
the structure of maximal Lie superalgebras and show that there is a finite
number of isomorphism classes, all related via contractions from an
orthosymplectic Lie superalgebra. We use the structure theory to show that
maximally supersymmetric waves do not possess such a maximal superalgebra, but
that the maximally supersymmetric Freund-Rubin backgrounds do. We perform the
explicit geometric construction of the maximal superalgebra of AdS_4 x S^7 and
find that is isomorphic to osp(1|32). We propose an algebraic construction of
the maximal superalgebra of any background asymptotic to AdS_4 x S^7 and we
test this proposal by computing the maximal superalgebra of the M2-brane in its
two maximally supersymmetric limits, finding agreement.Comment: 17 page
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