We use exceptional field theory to compute Kaluza-Klein mass spectra around ${\rm AdS_{3}}$ vacua that sit in half-maximal gauged supergravity in three dimensions. The formalism applies to any vacuum that arises from a consistent truncation of higher-dimensional supergravity, no matter what symmetries are preserved. We illustrate its efficiency by computing the spectra of ${\cal N}=(2,0)$ and ${\cal N}=(1,1)$ six-dimensional supergravities on ${\rm AdS_{3}}\times S^{3}$ and of type II supergravity on ${\rm AdS_{3}}\times S^{3}\times S^{3}\times S^{1}$.
We construct a generalization of Witten's Kaluza-Klein instanton, where a higher-dimensional sphere (rather than a circle as in Witten's instanton) collapses to zero size and the geometry terminates at a bubble of nothing, in a low energy effective theory of M theory. We use the solution to exhibit instability of non-supersymmetric AdS_5 vacua in M Theory compactified on positive Kaehler-Einstein spaces, providing a further evidence for the recent conjecture that any non-supersymmetric anti-de Sitter vacuum supported by fluxes must be unstable.
Exceptional field theories yield duality covariant formulations of supergravity. We show that they provide a highly efficient tool to compute the Kaluza-Klein mass spectra associated to compactifications around various background geometries relevant for string theory and holographic applications. This includes geometries with little to no remaining symmetries, hardly accessible to standard methods. As an illustration, we work out the masses of some higher Kaluza-Klein multiplets around warped geometries corresponding to some prominent ${\cal N} = 2$ supersymmetric AdS vacua in maximal supergra…
It is shown that flat zero-energy solutions (vacua) of the 5d Kaluza-Klein theory admit a non-trivial homotopy structure generated by certain Kaluza-Klein excitations. These vacua consist of an infinite set of homotopically different spacetimes denoted by $\mathcal{M}^{(n)}_5$, among which $\mathcal{M}^{(0)}_5$ and $\mathcal{M}^{(1)}_5$ are especially identified as $M_{4} \times S^{1}$ and $M_5$, the ground states of the 5d Kaluza-Klein theory and the 5d general relativity, respectively (where $M_k$ represents the $k$-dimensional Minkowski space).
Exceptional field theories yield duality-covariant formulations of higher-dimensional supergravity. They have proven to be an efficient tool for the construction of consistent truncations around various background geometries. In this paper, we demonstrate how the formalism can moreover be turned into a powerful tool for computing the Kaluza-Klein mass spectra around these backgrounds. Most of these geometries have little to no remaining symmetries and their spectra are accessible to standard methods only in selected subsectors. The present formalism not only grants access to the full Kaluza-Kl…
Vacua of different gaugings of $D=4$ ${\cal N}=8$ supergravity that preserve the same supersymmetries and bosonic symmetry tend to exhibit the same universal mass spectrum within their respective supergravities. For AdS$_4$ vacua in gauged supergravities that arise upon consistent truncation of string/M-theory, we show that this universality is lost at higher Kaluza-Klein levels. However, universality is still maintained in a milder form, as certain sums over a finite number of states remain universal. Further, we derive a mass matrix for Kaluza-Klein gravitons which is valid for all the AdS$_…
We construct the fermionic sector and supersymmetry transformation rules of a variant N=(1,1) supergravity theory obtained by generalized Kaluza-Klein reduction from seven dimensions. We show that this model admits both (Minkowski)_4 x S^2 and (Minkowski)_3 x S^3 vacua. We perform a consistent Kaluza-Klein reduction on S^2 and obtain D=4, N=2 supergravity coupled to a vector multiplet, which can be consistently truncated to give rise to D=4, N=1 supergravity with a chiral multiplet.
We perform a numerical study of the four-dimensional spin-2 Kaluza-Klein spectrum of supersymmetric AdS$_4\times S^2(\mathcal{B}_4)$ vacua and show that they do not exhibit scale separation. Our methods are generally applicable to similar problems where the compactification geometry is not known analytically, hence an analytic treatment of the spectrum of Kaluza-Klein masses is not available.
We summarize results for all four-dimensional Bogomol'nyi-Sommerfield-Prasat (BPS) saturated and non-extreme solutions of the ($4+n$)-dimensional Abelian Kaluza-Klein theory. Within effective N=4 supersymmetric string vacua, parameterized in terms of fields of the heterotic string on a six-torus, we then present a class of BPS saturated states and the corresponding non-extreme solutions, specified by $O(6,22,Z)$ and $SL(2,Z)$ orbits of general dyonic charge configurations with zero axion. The BPS saturated states with non-negative $O(6,22,Z)$ norms for electric and magnetic charge vectors, alo…
Domain wall and electrovac solutions of gauged N=4 D=4 supergravity, with gauge group SU(2) or SU(2)xSU(2), are interpreted as supersymmetric Kaluza-Klein vacua of N=1 D=10 supergravity. These vacua are shown to be the near-horizon geometries of certain intersecting brane solutions.
We study the large-$N$ limit of superconformal index for two strongly interacting Chern-Simons theories in three dimensions with $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetry, and compare the result against the AdS/CFT dual, namely the data of full Kaluza-Klein reduction spectra obtained using the exceptional field theory technique. The two theories of interest are mABJM and GJV theories, which are obtained as IR fixed point of RG whose UV description is ABJM and maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory respectively. We confirm agreement and the duality persists. For the case of mABJM it turns out that we n…
We find a new family of AdS_4 vacua in IIA string theory. The internal space is topologically either the complex projective space CP^3 or the "flag manifold" SU(3)/(U(1)xU(1)), but the metric is in general neither Einstein nor Kaehler. All known moduli are stabilized by fluxes, without using quantum effects or orientifold planes. The analysis is completely ten--dimensional and does not rely on assumptions about Kaluza--Klein reduction.
We compute the Kaluza-Klein spectrum of the non-supersymmetric SO(3)$\,\times\,$SO(3)-invariant AdS$_4$ vacuum of 11-dimensional supergravity, whose lowest-lying Kaluza-Klein modes belong to a consistent truncation to 4-dimensional ${\cal N}=8$ supergravity and are stable. We show that, nonetheless, the higher Kaluza-Klein modes become tachyonic so that this non-supersymmetric AdS$_4$ vacuum is perturbatively unstable within 11-dimensional supergravity. This represents the first example of unstable higher Kaluza-Klein modes and provides further evidence for the AdS swampland conjecture, which …
We argue that the Maldacena-Nunez no-go theorem excluding Minkowski and de Sitter vacua in flux compactifications can be extended to exclude anti-de Sitter (AdS) vacua for which the Kaluza-Klein scale is parametrically smaller than the AdS length scale. As a practical application of this observation we demonstrate that the mechanism to resolve O6 singularities in massive type IIA at the classical level is likely not to occur in AdS compactifications with scale separation. We furthermore remark that a compactification to four observable dimensions implies a large cosmological hierarchy.
The maximally supersymmetric Freund-Rubin vacua for eleven dimensional supergravity, namely $AdS_4 \times S^7$ and $AdS_7 \times S^4$, admit an analytic continuation to $S^4 \times S^7$. From the full harmonic expansions on $S^4 \times S^7$, it is shown that by analytical continuation to either $AdS_4$, or to $AdS_7$, the detailed structure of the Kaluza-Klein spectrum can be obtained for both vacua in a unified manner. The results are shown to be related by a simple rule which interchanges the spacetime and internal space representations. We also obtain the linearized field equations for the …
We consider generalized Scherk-Schwarz reductions of E$_9$ exceptional field theory to D=2 space-time dimensions and in particular construct the resulting scalar potential of all gauged supergravities that can be obtained in this way. This provides the first general expression for a multitude of theories with an interesting structure of vacua, covering potentially many new AdS$_2$ cases. As an application, we prove the consistency of the truncation of eleven-dimensional supergravity on $S^8\times S^1$ to SO(9) gauged maximal supergravity. Fluctuations around its supersymmetric SO(9)-invariant …
We study a one-parameter family of $\mathcal{N}=2$ anti-de Sitter vacua with ${\rm U}(1)^2$ symmetry of gauged four-dimensional maximal supergravity, with dyonic gauge group $[{\rm SO}(6)\times {\rm SO}(1,1)]\ltimes \mathbb{R}^{12}$. These backgrounds are known to correspond to Type IIB S-fold solutions with internal manifold of topology $S^1\times S^5$. The family of AdS$_4$ vacua is parametrized by a modulus $χ$. Although $χ$ appears non-compact in the four-dimensional supergravity, we show that this is just an artefact of the four-dimensional description. We give the 10-dimensional geometri…
The moduli space of the supersymmetric massive IIA AdS4xS2(B4) vacua, where S2(B4) is a two-sphere bundle over a four-dimensional Kaehler-Einstein base B4, includes three independent parameters which can be thought of as corresponding to the sizes of AdS4, B4 and the S2 fiber. It might therefore be expected that these vacua do not suffer from the absence of scale separation. We show that the independence of the geometric moduli survives flux quantization. However, we uncover an attractor behavior whereby all sizes flow to equality in some neighborhood of spacetime independently of the initial …
Stable non-supersymmetric Anti-de Sitter (AdS) vacua of string theory are widely believed not to exist. In this letter, we analytically compute the full bosonic Kaluza-Klein spectrum around the ${\rm G_2}$-invariant non-supersymmetric $\textrm{AdS}_4$ solution of massive IIA supergravity, and show that it is perturbatively stable. We also provide evidence that six other non-supersymmetric $\textrm{AdS}_4$ solutions of massive IIA supergravity are perturbatively stable. Since previous studies have indicated that these AdS vacua may also be non-perturbatively stable, our findings pose a challeng…
Looking for string vacua with fixed moduli, we study compactifications of type IIA string theory on Calabi-Yau fourfolds in the presence of generic Ramond-Ramond fields. We explicitly derive the (super)potential induced by Ramond-Ramond fluxes performing a Kaluza-Klein reduction of the ten-dimensional effective action. This can be conveniently achieved in a formulation of the massive type IIA supergravity where all Ramond-Ramond fields appear in a democratic way. The result agrees with the general formula for the superpotential written in terms of calibrations. We further notice that for gener…
We study the supersymmetry breaking induced by probe anti-D3-branes at the tip of the Klebanov-Strassler throat geometry. Antibranes inside this geometry polarize and can be described by an NS5-brane wrapping an $S^2$. When the number of antibranes is small compared to the background flux a metastable state exists that breaks supersymmetry. We present a manifestly supersymmetric effective model that realizes the polarized metastable state as a solution, spontaneously breaking the supersymmetry. The supersymmetric model relies crucially on the inclusion of Kaluza-Klein (matrix) degrees of freed…
We construct supersymmetric $\mathrm{AdS}_4$ vacua of type IIB string theory in compactifications on orientifolds of Calabi-Yau threefold hypersurfaces. We first find explicit orientifolds and quantized fluxes for which the superpotential takes the form proposed by Kachru, Kallosh, Linde, and Trivedi. Given very mild assumptions on the numerical values of the Pfaffians, these compactifications admit vacua in which all moduli are stabilized at weak string coupling. By computing high-degree Gopakumar-Vafa invariants we give strong evidence that the $α'$ expansion is likewise well-controlled. We …
We study the separation of AdS and Kaluza-Klein (KK) scales in type II 4d AdS orientifold vacua. We first address this problem in toroidal/orbifold type IIA vacua with metric fluxes, corresponding to compactifications in twisted tori, both from the 4d and 10d points of view. We show how the naive application of the effective 4d theory leads to results which violate the AdS distance conjecture, in a class of $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric models which have a 10d lifting to a compactification on $S^3\times S^3$. We show how using KK scales properly modified by the compact metric leads to no sepa…
We obtain the M5-M2-MW bound state solutions of 11-dimensional supergravity corresponding to the 1/2 supersymmetric vacua of the M5-brane equations with constant background fields. In the `near-horizon' case the solution interpolates between the $adS_7\times S^4$ Kaluza-Klein vacuum and D=11 Minkowski spacetime via a Domain Wall spacetime. We discuss implications for renormalization group flow of (2,0) D=6 field theories.
In order for string theory to be made compatible with the low-energy observations of a positive cosmological constant, there have been attempts to construct dS vacua in string theory which are particularly difficult to realize. Instead of attempting to find de Sitter (dS) vacuum solutions, we point to a new way to make string theory consistent with low-energy dS cosmology. In this way, string theory lives in an anti-de Sitter (AdS) vacuum (which is simple to construct) that exists only in the high-energy regime; however, as going to the low-energy scales where the heavy string excitations and …
We summarize the results for four-dimensional Bogomol'nyi-Prasad- Sommerfield (BPS) saturated dyonic black hole solutions arising in the Kaluza-Klein sector and the three-form field sector of the eleven-dimensional supergravity on a seven-torus. These black hole solutions break $3\over 4$ of $N=8$ supersymmetry, fill out the multipletes of $U$-duality group, and the two classes of solutions are related to each other by a discrete symmetry transformation in $E_7$. Using the field redefinitions of the corresponding effective actions, we present these solutions in terms of fields describing class…
We revisit Kaluza-Klein compactification of 11-d supergravity on S^7/Z_k using group theory techniques that may find application in other flux vacua with internal coset spaces. Among the SO(2) neutral states, we identify marginal deformations and fields that couple to the recently discussed world-sheet instanton of Type IIA on CP^3. We also discuss charged states, dual to monopole operators, and the Z_k projection of the Osp(4|8) singleton and its tensor products. In particular, we show that the doubleton spectrum may account for N=6 higher spin symmetry enhancement in the limit of vanishing '…
Compactification of M theory in the presence of G-fluxes yields N=2 five-dimensional gauged supergravity with a potential that lifts all supersymmetric vacua. We derive the effective superpotential directly from the Kaluza-Klein reduction of the eleven-dimensional action on a Calabi-Yau three-fold and compare it with the superpotential obtained by means of calibrations. We discuss an explicit domain wall solution, which represents five-branes wrapped over holomorphic cycles. This solution has a ``running volume'' and we comment on the possibility that quantum corrections provide a lower bound …
We work out the consistent AdS$_3\times S^3$ truncations of the bosonic sectors of both the six-dimensional ${\cal N}=(1,1)$ and ${\cal N}=(2,0)$ supergravity theories. They result in inequivalent three-dimensional half-maximal ${\rm SO}(4)$ gauged supergravities describing 32 propagating bosonic degrees of freedom apart from the non-propagating supergravity multiplet. We present the full non-linear Kaluza-Klein reduction formulas and illustrate them by explicitly uplifting a number of AdS$_3$ vacua.
The four dimensional critical scalar theory at equilibrium with a thermal bath at temperature $T$ is considered. The thermal equilibrium state is labeled by $n$ the winding number of the vacua around the compact imaginary-time direction which compactification radius is 1/T. The effective action for zero modes is a three dimensional $ϕ^4$ scalar theory in which the mass of the the scalar field is proportional to $n/T$ resembling the Kaluza-Klein dimensional reduction. Similar results are obtained for the theory at zero temperature but in a one-dimensional potential well. Since parity is violate…
We consider compactifications of massive IIA supergravity on a six-sphere. This setup is known to give rise to non-supersymmetric AdS$_4$ vacua preserving SO$(7)$ as well as G$_2$ residual symmetry. Both solutions have a round $S^6$ metric and are supported by the Romans' mass and internal $F_6$ flux. While the SO$(7)$ invariant vacuum is known to be perturbatively unstable, the G$_2$ invariant one has been found to have a fully stable Kaluza-Klein spectrum. Moreover, it has been shown to be protected against brane-jet instabilities. Motivated by these results, we study possible bubbling solut…
We relate across dimensions BPS attractors of black strings and black holes of various topology in gauged supergravities with nontrivial scalar potential. The attractors are of the form AdS$_{2, 3} \times Σ^{2, 3}$ in 4, 5, and 6 dimensions, and can be generalized to some higher dimensional analogs. Even though the attractor geometries admit standard Kaluza-Klein and Scherk-Schwarz reductions, their asymptotic AdS spaces in general do not. The resulting lower dimensional objects are black holes with runaway asymptotics in supergravity theories with no maximally symmetric vacua. Such classes of…
Motivated by the electroweak hierarchy problem, we consider theories with two extra dimensions in which the four-dimensional scalar fields are components of gauge boson in full space. We explore the Nielsen-Olesen instability for SU(N) on a torus, in the presence of a magnetic background. A field theory approach is developed, computing explicitly the minimum of the complete effective potential, including tri-linear and quartic couplings and determining the symmetries of the stable vacua. We also develop appropriate gauge-fixing terms when both Kaluza-Klein and Landau levels are present and int…
In the light of the duality between physics in the bulk of anti-de Sitter space and a conformal field theory on the boundary, we review the M2, D3 and M5 branes and how their near-horizon geometry yields the compactification of D=11 supergravity on S^{7}, Type IIB supergravity on S^{5} and D=11 supergravity on S^{4}, respectively. We discuss the ``Membrane at the End of the Universe'' idea and its relation to the corresponding superconformal singleton theories that live on the boundary of the AdS_{4}, AdS_{5} and AdS_{7} vacua. The massless sectors of these compactifications are described by t…
We present the most general rotating black hole solution of five-dimensional N=4 superstring vacua that conforms to the ``no hair theorem''. It is chosen to be parameterized in terms of massless fields of the toroidally compactified heterotic string. The solutions are obtained by performing a subset of O(8,24) transformations, i.e., symmetry transformations of the effective three-dimensional action for stationary solutions, on the five-dimensional (neutral) rotating solution parameterized by the mass m and two rotational parameters $l_1$ and $l_2$. The explicit form of the generating solution …
