We investigate instantons on manifolds with Killing spinors and their cones. Examples of manifolds with Killing spinors include nearly Kaehler 6-manifolds, nearly parallel G_2-manifolds in dimension 7, Sasaki-Einstein manifolds, and 3-Sasakian manifolds. We construct a connection on the tangent bundle over these manifolds which solves the instanton equation, and also show that the instanton equation implies the Yang-Mills equation, despite the presence of torsion. We then construct instantons on the cones over these manifolds, and lift them to solutions of heterotic supergravity. Amongst our solutions are new instantons on even-dimensional Euclidean spaces, as well as the well-known BPST, quaternionic and octonionic instantons.
The basic first-order differential operators of spin geometry that are Dirac operator and twistor operator are considered. Special types of spinors defined from these operators such as twistor spinors and Killing spinors are discussed. Symmetry operators of massless and massive Dirac equations are introduced and relevant symmetry operators of twistor spinors and Killing spinors are constructed from Killing-Yano (KY) and conformal Killing-Yano (CKY) forms in constant curvature and Einstein manifolds. The squaring map of spinors gives KY and CKY forms for Killing and twistor spinors respectively…
We show that the first-order symmetry operators of twistor spinors can be constructed from conformal Killing-Yano forms in conformally-flat backgrounds. We express the conditions on conformal Killing-Yano forms to obtain mutually commuting symmetry operators of twistor spinors. Conformal superalgebras which consist of conformal Killing vectors and twistor spinors and play important roles in supersymmetric field theories in conformal backgrounds are extended to more general superalgebras by using the graded Lie algebra structure of conformal Killing-Yano forms and the symmetry operators of twis…
We consider geometric and supergravity Killing spinors and the spinor bilinears constructed out of them. The spinor bilinears of geometric Killing spinors correspond to the antisymmetric generalizations of Killing vector fields which are called Killing-Yano forms. They constitute a Lie superalgebra structure in constant curvature spacetimes. We show that the Dirac currents of geometric Killing spinors satisfy a Lie algebra structure up to a condition on 2-form spinor bilinears. We propose that the spinor bilinears of supergravity Killing spinors give way to different generalizations of Killing…
In this review, basic definitions of spin geometry are given and some of its applications to supersymmetry, supergravity and condensed matter physics are summarized. Clifford algebras and spinors are defined and the first-order differential operators on spinors which lead to the definitions of twistor and Killing spinors are discussed. Holonomy classification for manifolds admitting parallel and Killing spinors are given. Killing-Yano and conformal Killing-Yano forms resulting from the spinor bilinears of Killing and twistor spinors are introduced and the symmetry operators of special spinor e…
We construct the first-order symmetry operators of Killing spinor equation in terms of odd Killing-Yano forms. By modifying the Schouten-Nijenhuis bracket of Killing-Yano forms, we show that the symmetry operators of Killing spinors close into an algebra in AdS_5 spacetime. Since the symmetry operator algebra of Killing spinors corresponds to a Jacobi identity in extended Killing superalgebras, we investigate the possible extensions of Killing superalgebras to include higher-degree Killing-Yano forms. We found that there is a superalgebra extension but no Lie superalgebra extension of the Kill…
We generalize the symmetry superalgebras of isometries and geometric Killing spinors on a manifold to include all the hidden symmetries of the manifold generated by Killing spinors in all dimensions. We show that bilinears of geometric Killing spinors produce special Killing-Yano and special conformal Killing-Yano forms. After defining the Lie algebra structure of hidden symmetries generated by Killing spinors, we construct the symmetry operators as the generalizations of the Lie derivative on spinor fields. All these constructions together constitute the structure of generalized symmetry supe…
We review the actions of the supergravity theory in eleven dimensions as well as the type IIA and IIB supergravities in ten dimensions and derive the bosonic equations of motion in a coordinate-free notation. We also consider the existence of supersymmetries and the associated generalized Killing spinor equations. The aim of this note is to serve as a formulary and make the equations of supergravity more easily accessible to mathematicians.
We outline the solution of the Killing spinor equations of the heterotic supergravity. In addition, we describe the classification of all half supersymmetric solutions.
We show that higher degree Dirac currents of twistor and Killing spinors correspond to the hidden symmetries of the background spacetime which are generalizations of conformal Killing and Killing vector fields respectively. They are the generalizations of 1-form Dirac currents to higher degrees which are used in constructing the bosonic supercharges in supergravity theories. In the case of Killing spinors, we find that the equations satisfied by the higher degree Dirac currents are related to Maxwell-like and Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau equations. Correspondence between the Dirac currents and harmoni…
We construct the space of infinitesimal variations for the Strominger system and an obstruction space to integrability, using elliptic operator theory. We initiate the study of the geometry of the moduli space, describing the infinitesimal structure of a natural foliation on this space. The associated leaves are related to generalized geometry and correspond to moduli spaces of solutions of suitable Killing spinor equations on a Courant algebroid. As an application, we propose a unifying framework for metrics with holonomy $\SU(3)$ and solutions of the Strominger system.
We consider gauged twistor spinors which are supersymmetry generators of supersymmetric and superconformal field theories in curved backgrounds. We show that the spinor bilinears of gauged twistor spinors satify the gauged conformal Killing-Yano equation. We prove that the symmetry operators of the gauged twistor spinor equation can be constructed from ordinary conformal Killing-Yano forms in constant curvature backgrounds. This provides a way to obtain gauged twistor spinors from ordinary twistor spinors.
This present work is based on our previous publications, which all together trigger our "Killing spinor programme". Other significant spinor fields are injected into the scheme and the intricate relations between them and their bilinears are constructed here. The web of relations concerning these constructions are presented clearly in a Venn diagram. Particular attention is devoted to the construction of equations satisfied by the homogeneous bilinears induced from Dirac spinors. Contacts with various physics theories are made throughout the text and some of the future directions of the progra…
This paper is a survey on special geometric structures that admit conformal Killing spinors based on lectures, given at the ``Workshop on Special Geometric Structures in String Theory'', Bonn, September 2001 and at ESI, Wien, November 2001. We discuss the case of Lorentzian signature and explain which geometries occur up to dimension 6.
The seven and nine dimensional geometries associated with certain classes of supersymmetric $AdS_3$ and $AdS_2$ solutions of type IIB and D=11 supergravity, respectively, have many similarities with Sasaki-Einstein geometry. We further elucidate their properties and also generalise them to higher odd dimensions by introducing a new class of complex geometries in $2n+2$ dimensions, specified by a Riemannian metric, a scalar field and a closed three-form, which admit a particular kind of Killing spinor. In particular, for $n\ge 3$, we show that when the geometry in $2n+2$ dimensions is a cone we…
We review our construction of a bifundamental version of the fuzzy 2-sphere and its relation to fuzzy Killing spinors, first obtained in the context of the ABJM membrane model. This is shown to be completely equivalent to the usual (adjoint) fuzzy sphere. We discuss the mathematical details of the bifundamental fuzzy sphere and its field theory expansion in a model-independent way. We also examine how this new formulation affects the twisting of the fields, when comparing the field theory on the fuzzy sphere background with the compactification of the 'deconstructed' (higher dimensional) field…
Benefiting from the index spinorial formalism, the Killing spinor equation is integrated in six-dimensional spacetimes. The integrability conditions for the existence of a Killing spinor are worked out and the Killing spinors are classified in two algebraic types, in the first type the scalar curvature of the spacetime must be negative, while in the second type the spacetime must be an Einstein manifold. In addition, the equations that define Killing-Yano (KY) and closed conformal Killing-Yano (CCKY) tensors are expressed in the index notation and, as consequence, all non-vanishing KY and CCKY…
We determine the Killing spinors for a class of magnetic brane solutions with Minkowski worldvolume of the theory of AdS Einstein Maxwell theories in d dimensions. We also obtain curved magnetic brane solutions with Ricci-flat worldvolumes. If we demand that the curved brane solution admits Killing spinors, then its worldvolume must admit parallel spinors. Classes of Ricci-flat worldvolumes admitting parallel spinors are discussed.
M-theory backgrounds in the form of unwarped compactifications with or without fluxes are considered. We construct the bilinear forms of supergravity Killing spinors for different choices of spinor inner products on these backgrounds. The equations satisfied by the bilinear forms and their decompositions into product manifolds are obtained for different inner product choices in the special case for which the spinors factorize. It is found that the $AdS$ solutions can only appear for some special choices of spinor inner products on product manifolds. The reduction of bilinears of supergravity K…
We derive simple general expressions for the explicit Killing spinors on the n-sphere, for arbitrary n. Using these results we also construct the Killing spinors on various AdS x Sphere supergravity backgrounds, including AdS_5 x S^5$, AdS_4 x S^7 and AdS_7 x S^4. In addition, we extend previous results to obtain the Killing spinors on the hyperbolic spaces H^n.
A supermanifold M is canonically associated to any pseudo Riemannian spin manifold (M_0,g_0). Extending the metric g_0 to a field g of bilinear forms g(p) on T_p M, p\in M_0, the pseudo Riemannian supergeometry of (M,g) is formulated as G-structure on M, where G is a supergroup with even part G_0\cong Spin(k,l); (k,l) the signature of (M_0,g_0). Killing vector fields on (M,g) are, by definition, infinitesimal automorphisms of this G-structure. For every spinor field s there exists a corresponding odd vector field X_s on M. Our main result is that X_s is a Killing vector field on (M,g) if and o…
We study the spinorial Killing equation of supergravity involving a torsion 3-form $\T$ as well as a flux 4-form $\F$. In dimension seven, we construct explicit families of compact solutions out of 3-Sasakian geometries, nearly parallel $\G_2$-geometries and on the homogeneous Aloff-Wallach space. The constraint $\F \cdot Ψ= 0$ defines a non empty subfamily of solutions. We investigate the constraint $\T \cdot Ψ= 0$, too, and show that it singles out a very special choice of numerical parameters in the Killing equation, which can also be justified geometrically.
Starting from a nonlinear realisation of eleven dimensional supergravity based on the group G11, whose generators appear as low level generators of E11, we present a super extended algebra, which leads to a covariant derivative of spinors identical to the Killing spinor equation of this theory. A similar construction leads to the Killing spinor equation of N=1 pure supergravity in ten dimensions.
This paper is intended to be a further step through our Killing spinor programme started with Class. Quantum Grav. \textbf{32}, 175007 (2015), and we will advance our programme in accordance with the road map recently given in arXiv:1611.04424v2. In the latter reference many open problems were declared, one of which contained the uncovered relations between specific spinors in spacetime represented by an arrow diagram built upon them. This work deals with one of the arrows with almost all of its details and ends up with an important physical interpretation of this setup in terms of the quantum…
We propose a way to classify all supersymmetric configurations of D=11 supergravity using the G-structures defined by the Killing spinors. We show that the most general bosonic geometries admitting a Killing spinor have at least a local SU(5) or an (Spin(7)\ltimes R^8)x R structure, depending on whether the Killing vector constructed from the Killing spinor is timelike or null, respectively. In the former case we determine what kind of local SU(5) structure is present and show that almost all of the form of the geometry is determined by the structure. We also deduce what further conditions mus…
From the Killing spinor equation and the equations satisfied by their bilinears we deduce some well known bosonic and fermionic field equations of mathematical physics. Aside from the trivially satisfied Dirac equation, these relativistic wave equations in curved spacetimes respectively are Klein-Gordon, Maxwell, Proca, Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau, Kähler, twistor and Rarita-Schwinger equations. This result shows that, besides being special kinds of Dirac fermions, Killing fermions can be regarded as physically fundamental. For the Maxwell case the problem of motion is analysed in a reverse manner wi…
I review a recently proposed method for determining the symmetry superalgebra of a supergravity configuration from its Killing spinors, and its application to the `near-horizon' limits of various rotating and intersecting branes.
Exact solutions to an Einstein-Maxwell(E-D-M) system with an electric current are simple models of global cosmic magnetic phenomena in the universe. In this paper, we consider an E-D-M system with two chiral spinors $ ψ^\pm$ coupled with a gauge field $ A$ and an electromagnetic field $F=dA$. We construct a family of exact solutions to the E-D-M system on four-dimensional static Sasakian spacetimes. The electromagnetic field in the solutions is a contact magnetic field, and the chiral spinors are induced from Sasakian quasi-Killing spinors. We find closed universe models whose weak energy cond…
The killing spinor of a linearly confining supergravity background previously proposed and argued to produce features of pure N=1 SU(N) gauge theory in four dimensions is constructed directly using the supersymmetry variations of the gravitino and the dilatino.
We reduce the classification of all supersymmetric backgrounds of IIB supergravity to the evaluation of the Killing spinor equations and their integrability conditions, which contain the field equations, on five types of spinors. This extends the work of [hep-th/0503046] to IIB supergravity. We give the expressions of the Killing spinor equations on all five types of spinors. In this way, the Killing spinor equations become a linear system for the fluxes, geometry and spacetime derivatives of the functions that determine the Killing spinors. This system can be solved to express the fluxes in t…
We present a result for non-compact manifolds with invertible Dirac operator, where we link the presence of a massless Killing spinor, with a harmonic, closed conformal Killing-Yano tensor, if one exists for the specic manifold. A couple of examples are introduced.
We develop a new framework for the study of generalized Killing spinors, where generalized Killing spinor equations, possibly with constraints, can be formulated equivalently as systems of partial differential equations for a polyform satisfying algebraic relations in the Kähler-Atiyah bundle constructed by quantizing the exterior algebra bundle of the underlying manifold. At the core of this framework lies the characterization, which we develop in detail, of the image of the spinor squaring map of an irreducible Clifford module $Σ$ of real type as a real algebraic variety in the Kähler-Atiyah…
We determine the necessary and sufficient conditions on the metric and the four-form for the most general bosonic supersymmetric configurations of D=11 supergravity which admit a null Killing spinor i.e. a Killing spinor which can be used to construct a null Killing vector. This class covers all supersymmetric time-dependent configurations and completes the classification of the most general supersymmetric configurations initiated in hep-th/0212008.
We obtain the effective action for the bosonic string with arbitrary Yang-Mills fields, up to the α' order, in general dimensions. The form of the action is determined by the requirement that the action admit well-defined Killing spinor equations, whose projected integrability conditions give rise to the full set of equations of motion. The success of the construction suggests that the hidden "pseudo-supersymmetry" associated with the Killing spinor equations may be a property of the bosonic string itself.
We compute the scalar curvature of 7-dimensional ${G}_2$-manifolds admitting a connection with totally skew-symmetric torsion. We prove the formula for the general solution of the Killing spinor equation and express the Riemannian scalar curvature of the solution in terms of the dilation function and the NS 3-form field. In dimension n=7 the dilation function involved in the second fermionic string equation has an interpretation as a conformal change of the underlying integrable ${G}_2$-structure into a cocalibrated one of pure type $W_3$.
We study metric solutions of Einstein-anti-Maxwell theory admitting Killing spinors. The analogue of the IWP metric which admits a space-like Killing vector is found and is expressed in terms of a complex function satisfying the wave equation in flat (2+1)-dimensional space-time. As examples, electric and magnetic Kasner spaces are constructed by allowing the solution to depend only on the time coordinate. Euclidean solutions are also presented.
We review the topological structure, sitting in any supergravity theory, which has been recently discovered in arXiv: 1801.04940. We describe how such a structure allows for a cohomological reformulation of the generalized Killing spinor equations which characterize bosonic supergravity solutions with unbroken supersymmetry.
In this paper we construct several supersymmetric theories, including SU(N) gauge theory, on AdS_5 background. We discuss the proper definition of the Killing equation for the symplectic Majorana spinors required in AdS_5 supersymmetric theories. We find that the symplectic Killing spinor equation involves a matrix M in the USp(2N) indices whose role was not recognized previously. Using the correct Killing spinors we explicitly confirm that the particle masses in the constructed theories agree with the predictions of the AdS/CFT correspondence. Finally, we establish correct O(d-1,2) isometry t…
We employ the G-structure formalism to study supersymmetric solutions of minimal and SU(2) gauged supergravities in seven dimensions admitting Killing spinors with associated timelike Killing vector. The most general such Killing spinor defines an SU(3) structure. We deduce necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a timelike Killing spinor on the bosonic fields of the theories, and find that such configurations generically preserve one out of sixteen supersymmetries. Using our general supersymmetric ansatz we obtain numerous new solutions, including squashed or deformed AdS sol…
In a previous paper we explicitly constructed a mapping that leads Dirac spinor fields to the dual-helicity eigenspinors of the charge conjugation operator (ELKO spinor fields). ELKO spinor fields are prime candidates for describing dark matter, and belong to a wider class of spinor fields, the so-called flagpole spinor fields, corresponding to the class-(5), according to Lounesto spinor field classification, based on the relations and values taken by their associated bilinear covariants. Such a mapping between Dirac and ELKO spinor fields was obtained in an attempt to extend the Standard Mode…
We show that all IIB supergravity backgrounds which admit more than 28 Killing spinors are maximally supersymmetric. In particular, we find that for all N>28 backgrounds the supercovariant curvature vanishes, and that the quotients of maximally supersymmetric backgrounds either preserve all 32 or N<29 supersymmetries.
We solve the Killing spinor equations of 6-dimensional (1,0) superconformal theories in all cases. In particular, we derive the conditions on the fields imposed by the Killing spinor equations and demonstrate that these depend on the isotropy group of the Killing spinors. We focus on the models proposed by Samtleben et al in \cite{ssw} and find that there are solutions preserving 1,2, 4 and 8 supersymmetries. We also explore the solutions which preserve 4 supersymmetries and find that many models admit string and 3-brane solitons as expected from the M-brane intersection rules. The string soli…
We study the near horizon geometry of generic Killing horizons constructing suitable coordinates and taking the appropriate scaling limit. We are able to show that the geometry will always show an enhancement of symmetries, and, in the extremal case, will develop a causally disconnected "throat" as expected. We analyze the implications of this to the Kerr/CFT conjecture and the attractor mechanism. We are also able to construct a set of special (pure) spinors associated with the horizon structure using their interpretation as maximally isotropic planes. The structure generalizes the usual redu…
A class of p-brane solutions for supersymmetric gravity theories with negative cosmological constant are proposed and analyzed. The solutions are purely bosonic and contain a worldsheet and a transverse section. The classification relays on the number of intrinsic Killing spinors on the worldsheet and the transverse section. A explicit discussion of the classification is performed for the four dimensional worldsheet case.
A method to construct noncommutative instantons as deformations from commutative instantons was provided in arXiv:0805.3373. Using this noncommutative deformed instanton, we investigate the spinor zero modes of the Dirac operator in a noncommutative instanton background on noncommutative R^4, and we modify the index of the Dirac operator on the noncommutative space slightly and show that the number of the zero mode of the Dirac operator is preserved under the noncommutative deformation. We prove the existence of the Green's function associated with instantons on noncommutative R^4, as a smooth…
We introduce a notion of Ricci flow in generalized geometry, extending a previous definition by Gualtieri on exact Courant algebroids. Special stationary points of the flow are given by solutions to first-order differential equations, the Killing spinor equations, which encompass special holonomy metrics with solutions of the Hull-Strominger system. Our main result investigates a method to produce new solutions of the Ricci flow and the Killing spinor equations. For this, we consider T-duality between possibly topologically distinct torus bundles endowed with Courant structures, and demonstrat…
We show how the theory of invariant principal bundle connections for reductive homogeneous spaces can be applied to determine the holonomy of generalised Killing spinor covariant derivatives of the form $D= \nabla + Ω$ in a purely algebraic and algorithmic way, where $Ω: TM \rightarrow Λ^*(TM)$ is a left-invariant homomorphism. Specialising this to the case of symmetric M-theory backgrounds (i.e. $(M,g,F)$ with $(M,g)$ a symmetric space and $F$ an invariant closed 4-form), we derive several criteria for such a background to preserve some supersymmetry and consequently find all supersymmetric s…
We solve the Killing spinor equations of 6-dimensional (1,0)-supergravity coupled to any number of tensor, vector and scalar multiplets in all cases. The isotropy groups of Killing spinors are $Sp(1)\cdot Sp(1)\ltimes \bH (1)$, $U(1)\cdot Sp(1)\ltimes \bH (2)$, $Sp(1)\ltimes \bH (3,4)$, $Sp(1) (2)$, $U(1) (4)$ and $\{1\} (8)$, where in parenthesis is the number of supersymmetries preserved in each case. If the isotropy group is non-compact, the spacetime admits a parallel null 1-form with respect to a connection with torsion the 3-form field strength of the gravitational multiplet. The associa…
The S-duality transformations in type IIB string theory can be seen as local U(1) transformations in type IIB supergravity. We use this approach to construct the $SL(2,Z)$ multiplets associated to supersymmetric backgrounds of type IIB string theory and the transformation laws of their corresponding Killing spinors.
We compute explicitly the Killing spinors of some ten dimensional supergravity solutions. We begin with a 10d metric of the form $\RR^{1,3}\times{\cal Y}_6$, where ${\cal Y}_6$ is either the singular conifold or any of its resolutions. Then, we move on to the Klebanov-Witten and Klebanov-Tseytlin backgrounds, both constructed over the singular conifold; and we also study the Klebanov-Strassler solution, built over the deformed conifold. Finally, we determine the form of the Killing spinors for the non-commutative deformation of the Maldacena-Núñez geometry.
We examine Killing spinor equations of the general IIB pp-wave backgrounds, which contain a scalar H(x^m,x^-) in the metric and a self-dual four-form ξ(x^m,x^-) in the self-dual five-form flux. Considering non-harmonic extra Killing spinors, we find that if the backgrounds admit at least one extra Killing spinor in addition to 16 standard Killing spinors, backgrounds can be reduced to the form with H=A_{mn}(x^-)x^mx^n and ξ(x^-), modulo coordinate transformations. We examine further the cases in which the extra Killing spinors are characterized by a set of Cartan matrices. Solving Killing spin…
We investigate the Killing spinor equations of IIB supergravity for one Killing spinor. We show that there are three types of orbits of Spin(9,1) in the space of Weyl spinors which give rise to Killing spinors with stability subgroups $Spin(7)\ltimes \bR^8$, $SU(4)\ltimes \bR^8$ and $G_2$. We solve the Killing spinor equations for the $Spin(7)\ltimes \bR^8$ and $SU(4)\ltimes \bR^8$ invariant spinors, give the fluxes in terms of the geometry and determine the conditions on the spacetime geometry imposed by supersymmetry. In both cases, the spacetime admits a null, self-parallel, Killing vector …
The paper consists mainly of two parts. In the first part, we obtain well-defined Killing spinor equations for the low-energy effective action of the bosonic string with the conformal anomaly term. We show that the conformal anomaly term is the only scalar potential that one can add into the action that is consistent with the Killing spinor equations. In the second part, we demonstrate that the Kaluza-Klein theory can be gauged so that the Killing spinors are charged under the Kaluza-Klein vector. This gauging process generates a scalar potential with a maximum that gives rise to an AdS spacet…
We show that all M-theory backgrounds which admit more than 29 Killing spinors are maximally supersymmetric. In particular, we find that the supercovariant curvature of all backgrounds which preserve 30 supersymmetries, subject to field equations and Bianchi identities, vanishes, and that there are no such solutions which arise as discrete quotients of maximally supersymmetric backgrounds.
Killing spinor identities relate components of equations of motion to each other for supersymmetric backgrounds. The only input required is the field content and the supersymmetry transformations of the fields, as long as an on-shell supersymmetrization of the action without additional fields exists. If we consider off-shell supersymmetry it is clear that the same relations will occur between components of the equations of motion independently of the specific action considered, in particular the Killing spinor identities can be derived for arbitrary, including higher derivative, supergravities…
