Symmetries and their applications in supergravity and superstring theories /
In the usual procedure for toroidal Kaluza-Klein reduction, all the higher-dimensional fields are taken to be independent of the coordinates on the internal space. It has been observed that a generalisation of this procedure is possible, which gives rise to lower-dimensional massive supergravities....
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
2000.
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| Online Access: | http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=731980871&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=2945&RQT=309&VName=PQD |
| Summary: | In the usual procedure for toroidal Kaluza-Klein reduction, all the higher-dimensional fields are taken to be independent of the coordinates on the internal space. It has been observed that a generalisation of this procedure is possible, which gives rise to lower-dimensional massive supergravities. The generalised reduction involves allowing fields in the higher dimension to have an additional dependence on the toroidal coordinates. We show that a very wide class of generalised reductions of this sort is possible and provide a rather complete investigation of their properties. The gauge transformations of p-form fields in supergravity theories acquire a non-commuting character when one introduces potentials both for the theory's original field strengths and for their duals. This has previously been shown in the ``doubled'' formalism for maximal supergravities, where a generalised duality relation between original and dual field strengths replaces the equations of motion. In the doubled formalism, the gauge transformations generate a superalgebra, and the corresponding symmetries have accordingly been called ``superdualities.'' We show that the gauge symmetry superalgebra implies certain non-trivial relations among the various p-brane tensions, which can straightforwardly be read off from the superalgebra commutation relations. This provides an elegant derivation of the brane-tension relations purely within a given theory, without the need to make use of duality relations between different theories, such as the type IIA/IIB T-duality, although the results are consistent with such dualities. We present the complete set of brane-tension relations in M-theory, in the type IIA and type IIB theories, and in all the lower-dimensional maximal supergravities. We also establish a direct correspondence between certain higher-rank p-form Chern-Simons topological type theories in the bulk of a manifold with boundary and particular sectors of supergravity models on the boundary, provided that certain boundary conditions are satisfied. The cases we investigate include eleven-dimensional supergravity and both of the type II theories in ten dimensions. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: Physics". |
| Physical Description: | viii, 118 leaves ; 28 cm. Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilm Inc. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-102). |