Non-linear Kaluza-Klein theory for dual fields

We present non-linear uplift ansaetze for all the bosonic degrees of freedom and dual fields in the 7-sphere reduction of D=11 supergravity to maximal SO(8) gauged supergravity and test them for the SO$(7)^{\pm}$ invariant solutions. In particular, we complete the known ansaetze for the internal components of the metric and 4-form flux by constructing a non-linear ansatz for the internal components of the dual 7-form flux. Furthermore, we provide ansaetze for the complete set of 56 vector fields, which are given by more general structures than those available from standard Kaluza-Klein theory. The novel features encountered here have no conventional geometric interpretation and provide a new perspective on Kaluza-Klein theory. We study the recently found set of generalised vielbein postulates and, for the 7-sphere compactification, we show that they reduce to the E7(7) Cartan equation of maximal SO(8) gauged supergravity in four dimensions. The significance of this framework for a higher-dimensional understanding of the embedding tensor and other gauged maximal supergravities is briefly discussed.Comment: 26 page

Duality completion of higher derivative corrections

We present a new method for completing higher derivative corrections for theories that exhibit duality symmetries under reduction. This proposal is based on the observation that duality symmetry in the reduced theory highly constrains the form of the unreduced theory. We apply this idea to closed bosonic string theory and complete the Riemann squared term to simply derive the known full tree-level effective action to order alpha'.Comment: 27 page

Einstein-Cartan Calculus for Exceptional Geometry

In this paper we establish and clarify the link between the recently found E7 generalised geometric structures, which are based on the SU(8) invariant reformulation of D=11 supergravity proposed long ago, and newer results obtained in the framework of recent approaches to generalised geometry, where E7 duality is built in and manifest from the outset. In making this connection, the so-called generalised vielbein postulate plays a key role. We explicitly show how this postulate can be used to define an E7 valued affine connection and an associated covariant derivative, which yields a generalised curvature tensor for the E7 based exceptional geometry. The analysis of the generalised vielbein postulate also provides a natural explanation for the emergence of the embedding tensor from higher dimensions.Comment: 18 pages; v2: we have added some minor calculational detail

Testing the non-linear flux ansatz for maximal supergravity

We put to test the recently proposed non-linear flux ansatz for maximal supergravity in eleven dimensions, which gives the seven-dimensional flux in terms of the scalars and pseudoscalars of maximal N=8 supergravity, by considering a number of non-trivial solutions of gauged supergravity for which the higher dimensional solutions are known. These include the G$_2$ and SU(4)$^-$ invariant stationary points. The examples considered constitute a very non-trivial check of the ansatz, which it passes with remarkable success.Comment: 23 page

The embedding tensor of Scherk-Schwarz flux compactifications from eleven dimensions

We study the Scherk-Schwarz reduction of D=11 supergravity with background fluxes in the context of a recently developed framework pertaining to D=11 supergravity. We derive the embedding tensor of the associated four-dimensional maximal gauged theories directly from eleven dimensions by exploiting the generalised vielbein postulates, and by analysing the couplings of the full set of 56 electric and magnetic gauge fields to the generalised vielbeine. The treatment presented here will apply more generally to other reductions of $D=11$ supergravity to maximal gauged theories in four dimensions.Comment: 27 page

Consistent 4-form fluxes for maximal supergravity

We derive new ansaetze for the 4-form field strength of D=11 supergravity corresponding to uplifts of four-dimensional maximal gauged supergravity. In particular, the ansaetze directly yield the components of the 4-form field strength in terms of the scalars and vectors of the four-dimensional maximal gauged supergravity---in this way they provide an explicit uplift of all four-dimensional consistent truncations of D=11 supergravity. The new ansaetze provide a substantially simpler method for uplifting d=4 flows compared to the previously available method using the 3-form and 6-form potential ansaetze. The ansatz for the Freund-Rubin term allows us to conjecture a `master formula' for the latter in terms of the scalar potential of d=4 gauged supergravity and its first derivative. We also resolve a long-standing puzzle concerning the antisymmetry of the flux obtained from uplift ansaetze.Comment: 20 pages + appendices; typos corrected; published versio

Real fermionic symmetry in type II supergravity

It is known that the transformations of fermionic T-duality, derived from the worldsheet theory, generically transform real supergravity backgrounds to complex supergravity backgrounds. We consider the low-energy target space theory and show that the type II supergravity equations admit a symmetry that transforms the Ramond-Ramond fields and the dilaton. The transformations given by this symmetry involve Killing spinors and include the transformations of Berkovits and Maldacena. However, we show that they also allow real transformations.Comment: 30 pages; added comments and references. Corrected typo

Generalised geometry from the ground up

Extending previous work on generalised geometry, we explicitly construct an E7-valued vielbein in eleven dimensions that encompasses the scalar bosonic degrees of freedom of D=11 supergravity, by identifying new "generalised vielbeine" in eleven dimensions associated with the dual 6-form potential and the dual graviton. By maintaining full on-shell equivalence with the original theory at every step, our construction altogether avoids the constraints usually encountered in other approaches to generalised geometry and, as a side product, also furnishes the non-linear ansatz for the dual (magnetic) 7-form flux for any non-trivial compactification of D=11 supergravity, complementing the known non-linear ansaetze for the metric and the 4-form flux. A preliminary analysis of the generalised vielbein postulate for the new vielbein components reveals tantalising hints of new structures beyond D=11 supergravity and ordinary space-time covariance, and also points to the possible D=11 origins of the embedding tensor. We discuss the extension of these results to E8

Conformal Anomaly for Non-Conformal Scalar Fields

We give a general definition of the conformal anomaly for theories that are not classically Weyl invariant and show that this definition yields a quantity that is both finite and local. As an example we study the conformal anomaly for a non-minimally coupled massless scalar and show that our definition coincides with results obtained using the heat kernel method.Comment: 9 page