English

Consistent Compactification of Double Field Theory on Non-geometric Flux Backgrounds

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-03-03 v2

Abstract

In this paper, we construct non-trivial solutions to the 2D2D-dimensional field equations of Double Field Theory (DFT) by using a consistent Scherk-Schwarz ansatz. The ansatz identifies 2(Dd)2(D-d) internal directions with a twist UMNU^M{}_N which is directly connected to the covariant fluxes FABC\mathcal{F}_{ABC}. It exhibits 2(Dd)2(D-d) linear independent generalized Killing vectors KIJK_I{}^J and gives rise to a gauged supergravity in dd dimensions. We analyze the covariant fluxes and the corresponding gauged supergravity with a Minkowski vacuum. We calculate fluctuations around such vacua and show how they gives rise to massive scalars field and vectors field with a non-abelian gauge algebra. Because DFT is a background independent theory, these fields should directly correspond the string excitations in the corresponding background. For (Dd)=3(D-d)=3 we perform a complete scan of all allowed covariant fluxes and find two different kinds of backgrounds: the single and the double elliptic case. The later is not T-dual to a geometric background and cannot be transformed to a geometric setting by a field redefinition either. While this background fulfills the strong constraint, it is still consistent with the Killing vectors depending on the coordinates and the winding coordinates, thereby giving a non-geometric patching. This background can therefore not be described in Supergravity or Generalized Geometry.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1401.5068,
  title  = {Consistent Compactification of Double Field Theory on Non-geometric Flux Backgrounds},
  author = {Falk Hassler and Dieter Lust},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.5068},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

44 pages, 3 tables, references added, typos corrected