In this text we combine the notions of supergeometry and supersymmetry. We construct a special class of supermanifolds whose reduced manifolds are (pseudo) Riemannian manifolds. These supermanifolds allow us to treat vector fields on the one hand and spinor fields on the other hand as equivalent geometric objects. This is the starting point of our definition of {supersymmetric Killing structures}. The latter combines subspaces of vector fields and spinor fields, provided they fulfill certain field equations. This naturally leads to a superalgebra that extends the supersymmetry algebra to the case of non-flat reduced space. We examine in detail the additional terms that enter into this structure and we give a lot of examples.
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 prove that, for M theory or type II, generic Minkowski flux backgrounds preserving $\mathcal{N}$ supersymmetries in dimensions $D\geq4$ correspond precisely to integrable generalised $G_{\mathcal{N}}$ structures, where $G_{\mathcal{N}}$ is the generalised structure group defined by the Killing spinors. In other words, they are the analogues of special holonomy manifolds in $E_{d(d)} \times\mathbb{R}^+$ generalised geometry. In establishing this result, we introduce the Kosmann-Dorfman bracket, a generalisation of Kosmann's Lie derivative of spinors. This allows us to write down the internal…
The harmonic action functional allows a natural generalisation to semi-Riemannian supergeometry, referred to as superharmonic action, which resembles the supersymmetric sigma models studied in high energy physics. We show that Killing vector fields are infinitesimal supersymmetries of the superharmonic action and prove three different Noether theorems in this context. En passant, we provide a homogeneous treatment of five characterisations of Killing vector fields on semi-Riemannian supermanifolds, thus filling a gap in the literature.
We study the twistor equation on pseudo-Riemannian $Spin^c-$manifolds whose solutions we call charged conformal Killing spinors (CCKS). We derive several integrability conditions for the existence of CCKS and study their relations to spinor bilinears. A construction principle for Lorentzian manifolds admitting CCKS with nontrivial charge starting from CR-geometry is presented. We obtain a partial classification result in the Lorentzian case under the additional assumption that the associated Dirac current is normal conformal and complete the Classification of manifolds admitting CCKS in all di…
We determine the Killing superalgebras underpinning field theories with rigid unextended supersymmetry on Lorentzian four-manifolds by re-interpreting them as filtered deformations of $\mathbb{Z}$-graded subalgebras with maximum odd dimension of the $N{=}1$ Poincaré superalgebra in four dimensions. Part of this calculation involves computing a Spencer cohomology group which, by analogy with a similar result in eleven dimensions, prescribes a notion of Killing spinor, which we identify with the defining condition for bosonic supersymmetric backgrounds of minimal off-shell supergravity in four d…
We study the algebraic structure of the Killing superalgebra of a supersymmetric background of $11$-dimensional supergravity and show that it is isomorphic to a filtered deformation of a $\mathbb Z$-graded subalgebra of the Poincaré superalgebra. We are able to map the classification problem for highly supersymmetric backgrounds (i.e., those which preserve more than half the supersymmetry) to the classification problem of a certain class of filtered deformations of graded subalgebras of the Poincaré superalgebra. We show that one can reconstruct a highly supersymmetric background from its Kill…
The role of Killing and Killing-Yano tensors for studying the geodesic motion of the particle and the superparticle in a curved background is reviewed. Additionally the Papadopoulos list [74] for Killing-Yano tensors in G structures is reproduced by studying the torsion types these structures admit. The Papadopoulos list deals with groups G appearing in the Berger classification, and we enlarge the list by considering additional G structures which are not of the Berger type. Possible applications of these results in the study of supersymmetric particle actions and in the AdS/CFT correspondence…
We calculate the Spencer cohomology of the $(1,0)$ Poincaré superalgebras in six dimensions: with and without R-symmetry. As the cases of four and eleven dimensions taught us, we may read off from this calculation a Killing spinor equation which allows the determination of which geometries admit rigidly supersymmetric theories in this dimension. We prove that the resulting Killing spinors generate a Lie superalgebra and determine the geometries admitting the maximal number of such Killing spinors. They are divided in two branches. One branch consists of the lorentzian Lie groups with bi-invari…
We calculate the relevant Spencer cohomology of the minimal Poincaré superalgebra in 5 spacetime dimensions and use it to define Killing spinors via a connection on the spinor bundle of a 5-dimensional lorentzian spin manifold. We give a definition of bosonic backgrounds in terms of this data. By imposing constraints on the curvature of the spinor connection, we recover the field equations of minimal (ungauged) 5-dimensional supergravity, but also find a set of field equations for an $\mathfrak{sp}(1)$-valued one-form which we interpret as the bosonic data of a class of rigid supersymmetric th…
We determine the geometry of supersymmetric heterotic string backgrounds for which all parallel spinors with respect to the connection $\hat\nabla$ with torsion $H$, the NS$\otimes$NS three-form field strength, are Killing. We find that there are two classes of such backgrounds, the null and the timelike. The Killing spinors of the null backgrounds have stability subgroups $K\ltimes\bR^8$ in $Spin(9,1)$, for $K=Spin(7)$, SU(4), $Sp(2)$, $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ and $\{1\}$, and the Killing spinors of the timelike backgrounds have stability subgroups $G_2$, SU(3), SU(2) and $\{1\}$. The former admit…
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…
We construct rigid supersymmetric gauge theories on Riemannian five-manifolds. We follow a holographic approach, realizing the manifold as the conformal boundary of a six-dimensional bulk supergravity solution. This leads to a systematic classification of five-dimensional supersymmetric backgrounds with gravity duals. We show that the background metric is furnished with a conformal Killing vector, which generates a transversely holomorphic foliation with a transverse Hermitian structure. Moreover, we prove that any such metric defines a supersymmetric background. Finally, we construct supersym…
We study the N=1 supersymmetric solutions of D=11 supergravity obtained as a warped product of four-dimensional anti-de-Sitter space with a seven-dimensional Riemannian manifold M. Using the octonion bundle structure on M we reformulate the Killing spinor equations in terms of sections of the octonion bundle on M. The solutions then define a single complexified G2-structure on M or equivalently two real G2-structures. We then study the torsion of these G2-structures and the relationships between them.
We extend the link between Einstein Sasakian manifolds and Killing spinors to a class of $η$-Einstein Sasakian manifolds, both in Riemannian and Lorentzian settings, characterising them in terms of generalised Killing spinors. We propose a definition of supersymmetric M-theory backgrounds on such a geometry and find a new class of such backgrounds, extending previous work of Haupt, Lukas and Stelle.
In this paper, we introduce a notion of quadratic Killing structure Jacobi operator (simply, Killing structure Jacobi operator) and its geometric meaning for real hypersurfaces in the complex two-plane Grassmannians. In addition, we give a classification theorem for Hopf real hypersurfaces with quadratic Killing structure Jacobi operator in complex two-plane Grassmannians.
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…
Let M be a 7-manifold with a G2-structure defined by ϕ\inΩ^{3}_{+}(M). We prove that ϕ is conformal-Killing with respect to the associated metric g(ϕ) if and only if the G2-structure is nearly parallel. Let M be an 8-manifold with a Spin7-structure defined by ψ\inΩ^{4}_{+}(M). We prove that ψ is conformal-Killing with respect to the associated metric g(ψ) if and only if the Spin7-structure is parallel.
In this paper we solve the problem of finding integrals of equations determining the Killing tensors on an $n$ -dimensional differentiable manifold $M$ endowed with an equiaffine $ SL(n, R) $ -structure and discuss possible applications of obtained results in Riemannian geometry.
We construct ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on 4D manifolds with a Killing vector field with isolated fixed points. It turns out that for every fixed point one can allocate either instanton or anti-instanton contributions to the partition function, and that this is compatible with supersymmetry. The equivariant Donaldson-Witten theory is a special case of our construction. We present a unified treatment of Pestun's calculation on $S^4$ and equivariant Donaldson-Witten theory by generalizing the notion of self-duality on manifolds with a vector field. We conjecture the full parti…
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.
