Axion-Dilaton Domain Walls and Fake Supergravity

Dynamical systems methods are used to investigate domain-wall solutions of a two-parameter family of models in which gravity is coupled to an axion, and to a dilaton with an exponential potential of either sign. A complete global analysis is presented for (i) constant axion and (ii) flat walls, including a study of bifurcations and a new exact domain-wall solution with non-constant axion. We reconsider `fake supergravity' issues in light of these results. We show, by example, how domain walls determine multi-valued superpotentials that branch at stationary points that are not stationary points of the potential, and we apply this result to potentials with anti-de Sitter vacua. We also show by example that `adapted' truncation to a single-scalar model is sometimes inconsistent, and we propose a `generalized' fake supergravity formalism that applies in some such cases.Comment: 43pp, 19 figures; minor corrections and extensions; one additional figur

From Wave Geometry to Fake Supergravity

The `Wave Geometry' equation of the pre-WWII Hiroshima program is also the key equation of the current `fake supergravity' program. I review the status of (fake) supersymmetric domain walls and (fake) pseudo-supersymmetric cosmologies. An extension of the domain-wall/cosmology correspondence to a triple correspondence with instantons shows that `pseudo-supersymmetry' has another interpretation as Euclidean supersymmetry.Comment: 14 pages. Minor Revisions to original. To appear in proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Quantum Theory and Symmetries (QTS5), Vallodolid, July 2007. in version

Fake supersymmetry versus Hamilton-Jacobi

We explain when the first-order Hamilton-Jacobi equations for black holes (and domain walls) in (gauged) supergravity, reduce to the usual first-order equations derived from a fake superpotential. This turns out to be equivalent to the vanishing of a newly found constant of motion and we illustrate this with various examples. We show that fake supersymmetry is a necessary condition for having physically sensible extremal black hole solutions. We furthermore observe that small black holes become scaling solutions near the horizon. When combined with fake supersymmetry, this leads to a precise extension of the attractor mechanism to small black holes: The attractor solution is such that the scalars move on specific curves, determined by the black hole charges, that are purely geodesic, although there is a non-zero potential.Comment: 20 pages, v2: Typos corrected, references adde

Black Holes in Supergravity and String Theory

We give an elementary introduction to black holes in supergravity and string theory. The focus is on BPS solutions in four- and higher-dimensional supergravity and string theory. Basic ideas and techniques are explained in detail, including exercises with solutions.Comment: 64 pages, based on lectures given at the school of the TMR network 'Quantum aspects of gauge theories, supersymmetry and unification' in Torino, January 26 - February 2, 2000. To be published in Class. Quant. Grav. (Some typos corrected, two references added.

AdS and pp-wave D-particle superalgebras

We derive anticommutators of supercharges with a brane charge for a D-particle in AdS(2) x S(2) and pp-wave backgrounds. A coset GL(2|2)/(GL(1))^4 and its Penrose limit are used with the supermatrix-valued coordinates for the AdS and the pp-wave spaces respectively. The brane charges have position dependence, and can be absorbed into bosonic generators by shift of momenta which results in closure of the superalgebras.Comment: 15 page

Fake Supergravity and Domain Wall Stability

We review the generalized Witten-Nester spinor stability argument for flat domain wall solutions of gravitational theories. Neither the field theory nor the solution need be supersymmetric. Nor is the space-time dimension restricted. We develop the non-trivial extension required for AdS-sliced domain walls and apply this to show that the recently proposed "Janus" solution of Type IIB supergravity is stable non-perturbatively for a broad class of deformations. Generalizations of this solution to arbitrary dimension and a simple curious linear dilaton solution of Type IIB supergravity are byproducts of this work.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figures, v2: minor corrections, references and acknowledgments adde

More on Massive 3D Supergravity

Completing earlier work on three dimensional (3D) N=1 supergravity with curvature-squared terms, we construct the general supergravity extension of cosmological massive gravity theories. We expand about supersymmetric anti-de Sitter vacua, finding the conditions for bulk unitarity and the critical points in parameter space at which the spectrum changes. We discuss implications for the dual conformal field theory.Comment: v1 : 53 pages, 1 figure; v2 : significantly shortened, 42 p., version published in Class. Quant. Gra

On Critical Massive (Super)Gravity in adS3

We review the status of three-dimensional "general massive gravity" (GMG) in its linearization about an anti-de Sitter (adS) vacuum, focusing on critical points in parameter space that yield generalizations of "chiral gravity". We then show how these results extend to N=1 super-GMG, expanded about a supersymmetric adS vacuum, and also to the most general `curvature-squared' N=1 supergravity model.Comment: 10 pages, Proceedings of ERE 2010, Granada, 6-10 september 2010; reference adde

Extensions of AdS_5 x S^5 and the Plane-wave Superalgebras and Their Realization in the Tiny Graviton Matrix Theory

In this paper we consider all consistent extensions of the AdS_5 x S^5 superalgebra, psu(2,2|4), to incorporate brane charges by introducing both bosonic and fermionic (non)central extensions. We study the Inonu-Wigner contraction of the extended psu(2,2|4) under the Penrose limit to obtain the most general consistent extension of the plane-wave superalgebra and compare these extensions with the possible BPS (flat or spherical) brane configurations in the plane-wave background. We give an explicit realization of some of these extensions in terms of the Tiny Graviton Matrix Theory (TGMT)[hep-th/0406214] which is the 0+1 dimensional gauge theory conjectured to describe the DLCQ of strings on the AdS_5 x S^5 and/or the plane-wave background.Comment: 27 pages, LaTe