M theory p p waves, Penrose limits and supernumerary supersymmetries

Mar, 2002
22 pages
Published in:
  • Nucl.Phys.B 644 (2002) 65-84
e-Print:
Report number:
  • CTP-TAMU-05-02,
  • UPR-985-T,
  • MCTP-02-18

Citations per year

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Abstract:
We study supersymmetric pp-waves in M-theory, their dimensional reduction to D0-branes or pp-waves in type IIA, and their T-dualisation to solutions in the type IIB theory. The general class of pp-waves that we consider encompass the Penrose limits of AdS_p\times S^q with (p,q)=(4,7), (7,4), (3,3), (3,2), (2,3), (2,2), but includes also many other examples that can again lead to exactly-solvable massive strings, but which do not arise from Penrose limits. All the pp-waves in D=11 have 16 ``standard'' Killing spinors, but in certain cases one finds additional, or ``supernumerary,'' Killing spinors too. These give rise to linearly-realised supersymmetries in the string or matrix models. A focus of our investigation is on the circumstances when the Killing spinors are independent of particular coordinates (x^+ or transverse-space coordinates), since these will survive at the field-theory level in dimensional reduction or T-dualisation.
  • M-theory
  • pp-wave
  • supersymmetry
  • dimensional reduction
  • T-duality
  • spinor: Killing
  • string model
  • action: light cone
  • matrix model
  • membrane model