The many facets of exceptional field theory

TL;DR

Exceptional field theories provide a unified, duality-covariant framework for supergravity and string/M-theory, encompassing various truncations, dualities, and deformations relevant to modern theoretical physics.

Contribution

This paper reviews the structure of exceptional field theory and explores its applications to supergravity, dualities, and integrable deformations in string/M-theory.

Findings

Captures supergravity triangles and duality symmetries.

Describes Hull's $*$-theories related to timelike dualities.

Connects to generalized supergravities and integrable deformations.

Abstract

Exceptional field theories are the manifestly duality covariant formulations of the target space theories of string/M-theory in the low-energy limit (supergravity) or for certain truncations. These theories feature a rich system of sub-theories, corresponding to different consistent truncations. We review the structure of exceptional field theory and elaborate on various potential applications. In particular, we discuss how exceptional field theories capture some of the the magic supergravity triangles, Hull's $*$-theories related to timelike dualities, as well as the generalized supergravities related to integrable deformations of AdS/CFT.