Lectures on Supergravity p-branes

TL;DR

This paper reviews classical p-brane solutions in supergravity, discussing their properties, types, singularities, supersymmetry, reductions, and dualities, providing a comprehensive overview of their theoretical framework.

Contribution

It offers a systematic review of p-brane solutions, including their classifications, properties, and relations to duality symmetries, enhancing understanding of supergravity p-branes.

Findings

Distinction between elementary and solitonic solutions

Examples of singularity and global structure

Relations between mass, charge, and supersymmetry preservation

Abstract

We review the properties of classical p-brane solutions to supergravity theories, i.e. solutions that may be interpreted as Poincare-invariant hyperplanes in spacetime. Topics covered include the distinction between elementary/electric and solitonic/magnetic solutions, examples of singularity and global structure, relations between mass densities, charge densities and the preservation of unbroken supersymmetry, diagonal and vertical Kaluza-Klein reduction families, Scherk-Schwarz reduction and domain walls, and the classification of multiplicities using duality symmetries.