Killing spectroscopy of closed timelike curves

TL;DR

This paper investigates the conditions under which closed timelike curves exist in spacetimes with isometries, demonstrating T-duality invariance and providing new examples in supersymmetric theories involving D-branes and pp-waves.

Contribution

It establishes that the existence of closed timelike curves is invariant under T-duality transformations in spacelike directions and applies this to supersymmetric models.

Findings

Closed timelike curves are T-duality invariant in spacelike directions.

Identified new examples of spacetimes with closed timelike curves in supersymmetric theories.

Provided a formalism to analyze closed timelike curves in various geometric settings.

Abstract

We analyse the existence of closed timelike curves in spacetimes which possess an isometry. In particular we check which discrete quotients of such spaces lead to closed timelike curves. As a by-product of our analysis, we prove that the notion of existence or non-existence of closed timelike curves is a T-duality invariant notion, whenever the direction along which we apply such transformations is everywhere spacelike. Our formalism is straightforwardly applied to supersymmetric theories. We provide some new examples in the context of D-branes and generalized pp-waves.