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 vector fields to higher degree forms. It is also shown that those supergravity Killing forms constitute a Lie algebra structure in six and ten dimensional cases. For five and eleven dimensional cases, the Lie algebra structure depends on an extra condition on supergravity Killing forms.
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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.
Under $SL(2,R)$ electric-magnetic duality transformations the Bogomolnyi bound of dilaton-axion black holes is known to be invariant. In this paper we show that this invariance corresponds to the covariance of the $N=4$ supersymmetry transformation rules and their parameters. In particular this implies that Killing spinors transform covariantly into Killing spinors. As an example, we work out completely the case of the largest known family of axion-dilaton black holes which is $SL(2,R)$-invariant, finding the Killing spinors with the announced properties.
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…
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 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 s…
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…
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 show how the Killing spinors of some maximally supersymmetric supergravity solutions whose metrics describe symmetric spacetimes (including $AdS,AdS\times S$ and H$pp$-waves) can be easily constructed using purely geometrical and group-theoretical methods. The calculation of the supersymmetry algebras is extremely simple in this formalism.
We show how the Killing Spinor Identities (KSI) can be used to reduce the number of independent equations of motion that need to be checked explicitly to make sure that a supersymmetric configuration is a classical supergravity solution. We also show how the KSI can be used to compute BPS relations between masses and charges.
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.
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.
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…
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 classify the supersymmetric solutions of minimal $N=2$ gauged supergravity in four dimensions with neutral signature. They are distinguished according to the sign of the cosmological constant and whether the vector field constructed as a bilinear of the Killing spinor is null or non-null. In neutral signature the bilinear vector field can be spacelike, which is a new feature not arising in Lorentzian signature. In the $Λ<0$ non-null case, the canonical form of the metric is described by a fibration over a three-dimensional base space that has $\text{U}(1)$ holonomy with torsion. We find tha…
We outline the solution of the Killing spinor equations of the heterotic supergravity. In addition, we describe the classification of all half supersymmetric solutions.
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.
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.
BPS black hole configurations which break half of supersymmetry in the theory of N=2, d=5 supergravity coupled to an arbitrary number of abelian vector multiplets are discussed. A general class of solutions comprising all known BPS rotating black hole solutions is obtained.
We have found generic Killing spinor identities which bosonic equations of motion have to satisfy in supersymmetric theories if the solutions admit Killing spinors. Those identities constrain possible quantum corrections to bosonic solutions with unbroken supersymmetries. As an application we show that purely electric static extreme dilaton black holes may acquire specific quantum corrections, but the purely magnetic ones cannot.
We show that the Killing spinor equations of all supergravity theories which may include higher order corrections on a (r,s)-signature spacetime are associated with twisted covariant form hierarchies. These hierarchies are characterized by a connection on the space of forms which may not be degree preserving. As a consequence we demonstrate that the form Killing spinor bi-linears of all supersymmetric backgrounds satisfy a suitable generalization of conformal Killing-Yano equation with respect to this connection. To illustrate the general proof the twisted covariant form hierarchies of some su…
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 investigate the hidden symmetries and existence of Killing spinors of D=5 minimal gauged supergravity solutions which admit a Killing-Maxwell system in the sense of Carter, such as the Chong-Cveti$\check{c}$-Lü-Pope (CCLP) Kerr-dS black hole spacetime and a 5-dimensional minimal gauged supergravity solution endowed with a Sasaki structure deformed by torsion, a limiting case of the generalization of the 5-dimensional toric Sasaki-Einstein $L^{a,b,c}$ spacetime. We note that when an electromagnetic tensor is present and an associated Killing-Maxwell system can be constructed in the sense of …
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 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 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…
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…
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.
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 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 consider Einstein gravity coupled to an n-form field strength in D dimensions. Such a theory cannot be supersymmetrized in general, we nevertheless propose a pseudo-Killing spinor equation and show that the AdS X Sphere vacua have the maximum number of pseudo-Killing spinors, and hence are fully pseudo-supersymmetric. We show that extremal p-branes and their intersecting configurations preserve fractions of the pseudo-supersymmetry. We study the integrability condition for general (D,n) and obtain the additional constraints that are required so that the existence of the pseudo-Killing spino…
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 …
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 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 consider the bosonic sectors of supergravity theories in ten and eleven dimensions which correspond to the low energy limits of string theories and M-theory. The solutions of supergravity field equations are known as supergravity backgrounds and the number of preserved supersymmetries in those backgrounds are determined by Killing spinors. We provide some examples of supergravity backgrounds which preserve different fractions of supersymmetry. An important invariant for the characterization of supergravity backgrounds is their Killing superalgebras which are constructed out of Killing vecto…
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…
The supersymmetric solutions of N=2, D=4 minimal ungauged and gauged supergravity are classified according to the fraction of preserved supersymmetry using spinorial geometry techniques. Subject to a reasonable assumption in the 1/2-supersymmetric time-like case of the gauged theory, we derive the complete form of all supersymmetric solutions. This includes a number of new 1/4- and 1/2-supersymmetric possibilities, like gravitational waves on bubbles of nothing in AdS_4.
