Minimal $D=7$ Supergravity and the supersymmetry of Arnold-Beltrami Flux branes

TL;DR

This paper explores Arnold-Beltrami flux-brane solutions in minimal D=7 supergravity, analyzing their supersymmetry properties, symmetries, and connections to gauge theories and topological sigma-models.

Contribution

It identifies supersymmetry-preserving flux-brane solutions, characterizes their symmetries, and links flux configurations to hyperinstantons in topological models.

Findings

Flux-branes can preserve 0, 1/8, or 1/4 of supersymmetry.

Flux-branes without fluxes preserve 1/2 supersymmetry.

Discrete symmetries relate to crystallographic groups and gauge theories.

Abstract

In this paper we study some properties of the newly found Arnold-Beltrami flux-brane solutions to the minimal $D=7$ supergravity. To this end we first single out the appropriate Free Differential Algebra containing both a gauge $3$-form $\mathbf{B}^{[3]}$ and a gauge $2$-form $\mathbf{B}^{[2]}$: then we present the complete rheonomic parametrization of all the generalized curvatures. This allows us to identify two-brane configurations with Arnold-Beltrami fluxes in the transverse space with exact solutions of supergravity and to analyze the Killing spinor equation in their background. We find that there is no preserved supersymmetry if there are no additional translational Killing vectors. Guided by this principle we explicitly construct Arnold-Beltrami flux two-branes that preserve $0$, $1/8$ and $1/4$ of the original supersymmetry. Two-branes without fluxes are instead BPS states and preserve $1/2$ supersymmetry. For each two-brane solution we carefully study its discrete symmetry that is always given by some appropriate crystallographic group $\Gamma$. Such symmetry groups $\Gamma$ are transmitted to the $D=3$ gauge theories on the brane world--volume that occur in the gauge/gravity correspondence. Furthermore we illustrate the intriguing relation between gauge fluxes in two-brane solutions and hyperinstantons in $D=4$ topological sigma-models.