Exact Wave Solutions to 6D Gauged Chiral Supergravity

TL;DR

This paper presents a broad class of exact, time-dependent wave solutions in 6D gauged chiral supergravity, extending known 4D solutions and applicable to higher-dimensional supergravity and string theory contexts.

Contribution

It introduces a new class of exact, warped wave solutions in 6D supergravity that generalize 4D pp-waves and Kundt solutions, with potential applications in string theory.

Findings

Solutions describe 6D shock waves from high-energy particles on branes.

Solutions model near-brane wavefronts from bubble-nucleation events.

Methods applicable to other higher-dimensional supergravity theories.

Abstract

We describe a broad class of time-dependent exact wave solutions to 6D gauged chiral supergravity with two compact dimensions. These 6D solutions are nontrivial warped generalizations of 4D pp-waves and Kundt class solutions and describe how a broad class of previously-static compactifications from 6D to 4D (sourced by two 3-branes) respond to waves moving along one of the uncompactified directions. Because our methods are generally applicable to any higher dimensional supergravity they are likely to be of use for finding the supergravity limit of time-dependent solutions in string theory. The 6D solutions are interesting in their own right, describing 6D shock waves induced by high energy particles on the branes, and as descriptions of the near-brane limit of the transient wavefront arising from a local bubble-nucleation event on one of the branes, such as might occur if a tension-changing phase transition were to occur.