Supersymmetric Kaluza-Klein reductions of M2 and M5-branes

TL;DR

This paper classifies supersymmetric Kaluza-Klein reductions of M2 and M5-branes, leading to new IIA backgrounds with diverse brane configurations and novel time-dependent M-theory solutions, enriching the landscape of supersymmetric string theory backgrounds.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive classification and construction of all smooth supersymmetric Kaluza-Klein reductions of M-branes, revealing new backgrounds and configurations in string and M-theory.

Findings

New supersymmetric IIA backgrounds with composite branes and fluxes

Time-dependent M-theory backgrounds asymptotic to Minkowski quotients

Novel configurations involving transverse rotations and translations

Abstract

We classify and construct all the smooth Kaluza-Klein reductions to ten dimensions of the M2- and M5-brane configurations which preserve some of the supersymmetry. In this way we obtain a wealth of new supersymmetric IIA backgrounds describing composite configurations of D-branes, NS-branes and flux/nullbranes; bound states of D2-branes and strings, D4-branes and NS5-branes, as well as some novel configurations in which the quotient involves nowhere-vanishing transverse rotations to the brane twisted by a timelike or lightlike translation. From these results there also follow novel M-theory backgrounds locally isometric to the M-branes, some of which are time-dependent and all of which are asymptotic to discrete quotients of eleven-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. We emphasise the universality of the formalism by briefly discussing analogous analyses in type IIA/IIB dual to the ones mentioned above. Some comments on the dual gauge theory description of some of our configurations are also included.