Four-loop β-function for the N = 1 and N = 2 supersymmetric non-linear sigma model in two dimensions

A superspace calculation of the four-loop β-function is presented for two-dimensional N= 1,2 supersymmetric non-linear σ-models. It is concluded that besides the one-loop contribution which vanishes on Ricci-flat manifolds, the β-function receives four-loop contributions which do not vanish in the Ricci-flat case. Implications for the superstring are discussed.     

A note on proper homothetic motions

It is shown that the only Ricci-flat space-time to support a time-like propert homothetic motion with hypersurface orthogonal trajectories is flat space.     

Self-Dual Conformal Gravity

We find necessary and sufficient conditions for a Riemannian four-dimensional manifold (M, g) with anti-self-dual Weyl tensor to be locally conformal to a Ricci-flat manifold. These conditions are expressed as the vanishing of scalar and tensor conformal invariants. The invariants obstruct the existence of parallel sections of a certain connection on a complex rank-four vector bundle over M. They provide a natural generalisation of the Bach tensor which vanishes identically for anti-self-dual conformal structures. We use the obstructions to demonstrate that LeBrun’s anti-self-dual metrics on connected sums of \({\mathbb{CP}^2}\) s are not conformally Ricci-flat on any open set. We analyze both Riemannian and neutral signature metrics. In the latter case we find all anti-self-dual metrics with a parallel real spinor which are locally conformal to Einstein metrics with non-zero cosmological constant. These metrics admit a hyper-surface orthogonal null Killing vector and thus give rise to projective structures on the space of β-surfaces.     

A set of invariant quality factors measuring the deviation from the Kerr metric

A number of scalar invariant characterizations of the Kerr solution are presented. These characterizations come in the form of quality factors defined in stationary space-times. A quality factor is a scalar quantity varying in the interval $[0,1]$ with the value 1 being attained if and only if the space-time is locally isometric to the Kerr solution. No knowledge of the Kerr solution is required to compute these quality factors. A number of different possibilities arise depending on whether the space-time is Ricci-flat and asymptotically flat, just Ricci-flat, or Ricci non-flat. In each situation a number of quality factors are constructed and analysed. The relevance of these quality factors is clear in any situation where one seeks a rigorous formulation of the statement that a space-time is “close” to the Kerr solution, such as: its non-linear stability problem, the asymptotic settlement of a radiating isolated system undergoing gravitational collapse, or in the formulation of some uniqueness results.     

Towards large volume big divisor D3/D7 “μ-split supersymmetry” and Ricci-flat Swiss-cheese metrics, and dimension-six neutrino mass operators

We show that it is possible to realize a “μ-split SUSY” scenario (Cheng and Cheng, 2005) [1] in the context of large volume limit of type IIB compactifications on Swiss-cheese Calabi-Yau orientifolds in the presence of a mobile space-time filling D3-brane and a (stack of) D7-brane(s) wrapping the “big” divisor. For this, we investigate the possibility of getting one Higgs to be light while other to be heavy in addition to a heavy higgsino mass parameter. Further, we examine the existence of long lived gluino that manifests one of the major consequences of μ-split SUSY scenario, by computing its decay width as well as lifetime corresponding to the three-body decays of the gluino into either a quark, a squark and a neutralino or a quark, squark and goldstino, as well as two-body decays of the gluino into either a neutralino and a gluon or a goldstino and a gluon. Guided by the geometric Kähler potential for ΣB obtained in Misra and Shukla (2010) [2] based on GLSM techniques, and the Donaldson?s algorithm (Barun et al., 2008) [3] for obtaining numerically a Ricci-flat metric, we give details of our calculation in Misra and Shukla (2011) [4] pertaining to our proposed metric for the full Swiss-cheese Calabi-Yau (the geometric Kähler potential being needed to be included in the full moduli space Kähler potential in the presence of the mobile space-time filling D3-brane), but for simplicity of calculation, close to the big divisor, which is Ricci-flat in the large volume limit. Also, as an application of the one-loop RG flow solution for the higgsino mass parameter, we show that the contribution to the neutrino masses at the EW scale from dimension-six operators arising from the Kähler potential, is suppressed relative to the Weinberg-type dimension-five operators.     

Compactification and supersymmetry in d = 11 supergravity

We examine the conditions under which the ground state of d = 11 supergravity can be supersymmetric and be of the form M⁴ ? B⁷ with M⁴ Minkowski spacetime and B⁷ a compact seven-dimensional manifold. Since we have in mind a background that renders the effective action stationary we make no use of the classical field equations. We find that the requirement that the four-space be flat is very restrictive. It requires all components of the background four-index field to vanish and the compact manifold to be Ricci-flat and hence to have at most the abelian symmetries associated with tori.     

Quantizing the N=2 super sigma-model in two dimensions

A manifestly covariant background field formalism for the N=2 supersymmetric non-linear σ-model is presented. The formalism allows the symmetries of the model to be exploited to the full in the discussion of the ultraviolet divergences in the quantum theory. This proves the cohomological triviality of the metric counterterms at the l⩾2 loop orders. The formalism confirms the finiteness of models with Ricci-flat metrics through the three-loop order. However, it seems unlikely that these cancellations will persist to higher orders. This general analysis is borne out by a study of the supercurrent structure. It is shown that while there is a component axial U(1) current which obeys an Adler-Bardeen theorem, this current is not in the supercurrent multiplet and its existence cannot therefore be used to prove conformal invariance at the quantum level.     

Conformally Ricci flat Einstein-Maxwell solutions with a null electromagnetic field

A proof is given that a conformally Ricci-flat Einstein-Maxwell field is null if and only if the conformai scalar field has a null gradient. The solutions belong then necessarily to the family ofpp waves.     

Anti-self-dual gravitational metrics determined by the modified heavenly equation

In paper Doubrov and Ferapontov (2010) on the classification of integrable complex Monge–Ampère equations, the modified heavenly (MH) equation of Dubrov and Ferapontov is one of canonical equations. It is well known that solutions of the first and second heavenly equations of Plebañski (1975) and those of the Husain equation in Husain (1994) provide potentials for anti-self-dual (ASD) Ricci-flat vacuum metrics. For another canonical equation, the general heavenly equation of Dubrov and Ferapontov (2010), we had constructed in Malykh and Sheftel (2011) ASD Ricci-flat metric governed by this equation. Thus, the modified heavenly equation remains the only one in the list of canonical equations in Doubrov and Ferapontov (2010) for which such a metric is missing so far. Our aim here is to construct null tetrad of vector fields, coframe 1-forms and ASD Ricci-flat metric for the latter equation. We study reality conditions and signature for the resulting metric. As an example, we obtain a multi-parameter cubic solution of the MH equation which yields a family of metrics with the above properties. Riemann curvature 2-forms are also explicitly presented for the cubic solution.     

The Self-Dual Einstein–Weyl Metric and Classical Solution of Painlevé VI

In the natural correspondence between the self-dual Bianchi type IX metrics and solutions of Painlevé VI, the self-dual Ricci-flat metrics or the nontrivial self-dual Einstein–Weyl metrics correspond to the classical solutions of Painlevé VI that determine isomonodromic deformations with reducible monodromy.     

Dirac equation for massive neutrinos in a Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime from a 5D vacuum

Starting from a Dirac equation for massless neutrino in a 5D Ricci-flat background metric, we obtain the effective 4D equation for massive neutrino in a Schwarzschild-de Sitter (SdS) background metric from an extended SdS 5D Ricci-flat metric. We use the fact that the spin connection is defined to an accuracy of a vector, so that the covariant derivative of the spinor field is strongly dependent of the background geometry. We show that the mass of the neutrino can be induced from the extra space-like dimension.     

Remarks on Symplectic Connections

This note contains a short survey on some recent work on symplectic connections: properties and models for symplectic connections whose curvature is determined by the Ricci tensor, and a procedure to build examples of Ricci-flat connections. For a more extensive survey, see Bieliavsky et al. [Int. J. Geom. Methods Mod. Phys. 3, 375–420 2006]. This note also includes a moment map for the action of the group of symplectomorphisms on the space of symplectic connections, an algebraic construction of a large class of Ricci-flat symmetric symplectic spaces, and an example of global reduction in a non-symmetric case.     

The embedding of General Relativity in five dimensions

We argue that General Relativistic solutions can always be locally embedded in Ricci-flat 5-dimensional spaces. This is a direct consequence of a theorem of Campbell (given here for both a timelike and spacelike extra dimension, together with a special case of this theorem) which guarantees that anyn-dimensional Riemannian manifold can be locally embedded in an (n+1)-dimensional Ricci-flat Riemannian manifold. This is of great importance in establishing local generality for a proposal recently put forward and developed by Wesson and others, whereby vacuum (4+1)-dimensional field equations give rise to (3+1)-dimensional equations with sources. An important feature of Campbell's procedure is that it automatically guarantees the compatibility of Gauss-Codazzi equations and therefore allows the construction of embeddings to be in principle always possible. We employ this procedure to construct such embeddings in a number of simple cases.     

Painlevé expansions and the Einstein equations: the two-summand case

We investigate the existence of Painlevé–Kovalevskaya expansions for various reductions to ordinary differential equations of the Ricci-flat equations. We investigate links between such expansions and metrics of exceptional holonomy.     

The Hitchin Functionals and the Topological B-Model at One Loop

The quantization in quadratic order of the Hitchin functional, which defines by critical points a Calabi–Yau structure on a six-dimensional manifold, is performed. The conjectured relation between the topological B-model and the Hitchin functional is studied at one loop. It is found that the genus one free energy of the topological B-model disagrees with the one-loop free energy of the minimal Hitchin functional. However, the topological B-model does agree at one-loop order with the extended Hitchin functional, which also defines by critical points a generalized Calabi–Yau structure. The dependence of the one-loop result on a background metric is studied, and a gravitational anomaly is found for both the B-model and the extended Hitchin model. The anomaly reduces to a volume-dependent factor if one computes for only Ricci-flat Kähler metrics     

Fluxbrane and S-brane solutions related to Lie algebras

We overview composite fluxbrane and special S-brane solutions for a wide class of intersection rules related to semi-simple Lie algebras. These solutions are defined on a product manifold R* × M ₁ × ... M ₁ × ... ×M _n which contains n Ricci-flat spaces M ₁, ..., M _n with 1-dimensional R* and M ₁. They are governed by a set of moduli functions H _s , which have polynomial structure. The powers of polynomials coincide with the components of the dual Weyl vector in the basis of simple coroots.     

Harmonic Maps as a Subclass of Isometric Embeddings of the Spacetime in Five Dimensions

In the light of the Campbell-Magaard embedding theorem we demonstrate that it is always possible to harmonically and isometrically embed any n-dimensional space into a (n + 1)-dimensional Ricci-flat space. We work out an example to illustrate the results.     

Complete Ricci-flat Kähler manifolds of infinite topological type

We display an infinite dimensional family of complete Ricci-flat Kähler manifolds of complex dimension 2, for which the second homology is infinitely generated. These are obtained from the Gibbons-Hawking Ansatz [2] by using infinitely many, sparsely distributed centers.     

Ricci-Flat Metrics,Harmonic Forms and Brane Resolutions

 We discuss the geometry and topology of the complete, non-compact, Ricci-flat Stenzel metric, on the tangent bundle of S ⁿ⁺¹ . We obtain explicit results for all the metrics, and show how they can be obtained from first-order equations derivable from a superpotential. We then provide an explicit construction for the harmonic self-dual (p, q)-forms in the middle dimension p+q=(n+1) for the Stenzel metrics in 2(n+1) dimensions. Only the (p, p)-forms are L ² -normalisable, while for (p, q)-forms the degree of divergence grows with . We also construct a set of Ricci-flat metrics whose level surfaces are U(1) bundles over a product of N Einstein-K?hler manifolds, and we construct examples of harmonic forms there. As an application, we construct new examples of deformed supersymmetric non-singular M2-branes with such 8-dimensional transverse Ricci-flat spaces. We show explicitly that the fractional D3-branes on the 6-dimensional Stenzel metric found by Klebanov and Strassler is supported by a pure (2,1)-form, and thus it is supersymmetric, while the example of Pando Zayas-Tseytlin is supported by a mixture of (1,2) and (2,1) forms. We comment on the implications for the corresponding dual field theories of our resolved brane solutions. Received: 22 February 2001 / Accepted: 16 August 2002 Published online: 7 November 2002