Romans massive QP manifolds

TL;DR

This paper introduces QP manifolds that model the generalized geometry of type IIA string backgrounds with fluxes and Romans mass, linking branes, dualities, and topological field theories.

Contribution

It presents a novel framework of QP manifolds capturing the geometry of type IIA backgrounds with fluxes and Romans mass, connecting branes and dualities.

Findings

QP manifolds encode type IIA backgrounds with fluxes and Romans mass.

Relation between probe branes and QP-manifolds via AKSZ construction.

M-theory/type IIA duality realized as symplectic reduction on QP-manifolds.

Abstract

We introduce QP manifolds that capture the generalised geometry of type IIA string backgrounds with Ramond-Ramond fluxes and Romans mass. Each of these is associated to a BPS brane in type IIA: a D2, D4, or NS5-brane. We explain how these probe branes are related to their associated QP-manifolds via the AKSZ topological field theory construction and the recent brane phase space construction. M-theory/type IIA duality is realised on the QP-manifold side as symplectic reduction along the M-theory circle (for branes that do not wrap it); this always produces IIA QP-manifolds with vanishing Romans mass.