Related papers: Gravitational instantons, extra dimensions and for…
We Study instanton solutions in general relativity with a scalar field. The metric ansatz we use is composed of a particular warp product of general Einstein metrics, such as those found in a number of cosmological settings, including…
We introduce a general class of toric gravitational instantons in $D=4$, $\mathcal{N}=2$ gauged supergravity, namely Euclidean supersymmetric solutions with $U(1)^2$ isometry. Such solutions are specified by a "supergravity labelled…
We discuss four-dimensional "spatially homogeneous" gravitational instantons. These are self-dual solutions of Euclidean vacuum Einstein's equations with potentially non-vanishing cosmological constant. They are endowed with a product…
Supersymmetric instanton solutions in four dimensional Euclidean ungauged Einstein-Maxwell theory are analysed and classified according to the fraction of supersymmetry they preserve, using spinorial geometry techniques.
We study various aspects of four dimensional Einstein-Maxwell multicentred gravitational instantons. These are half-BPS Riemannian backgrounds of minimal N=2 supergravity, asymptotic to R^4, R^3 x S^1 or AdS_2 x S^2. Unlike for the…
We investigate cosmological solutions of eleven dimensional supergravity compactified on a squashed seven manifold. The effective action for the four dimensional theory contains scalar fields describing the size and squashing of the…
We study the Hawking-Turok (HT) instanton solutions which have been employed to describe the creation of an open inflationary universe, in the context of higher derivative theories. We consider the effects of adding quadratic and cubic…
Many quantum field theories in one, two and four dimensions possess remarkable limits in which the instantons are present, the anti-instantons are absent, and the perturbative corrections are reduced to one-loop. We analyze the…
The non-perturbative corrections to the universal hypermultiplet moduli space metric in the type-IIA superstring compactification on a Calabi-Yau threefold are investigated in the presence of 4d, N=2 supergravity. These corrections come…
This is a brief summary of our studies of quantum field theories in a special limit in which the instantons are present, the anti-instantons are absent, and the perturbative corrections are reduced to one-loop. We analyze the corresponding…
We present and discuss BPS instanton solutions that appear in type II string theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau threefolds. From an effective action point of view these arise as finite action solutions of the Euclidean equations of…
The dimensional reduction of eleven dimensional supergravity on a Calabi-Yau manifold gives N=2 supergravity in five dimensions with $h_{1,1}$ vector and $h_{2,1}+1$ hypermultiplets. In this paper instanton solutions are constructed which…
We present several new space-periodic solutions of the static vacuum Einstein equations in higher dimensions, both with and without black holes, having Kasner asymptotics. These latter solutions are referred to as gravitational solitons.…
Solutions of Einstein's equations are found for global defects in a higher-dimensional spacetime with a nonzero cosmological constant Lambda. The defect has a (p-1)-dimensional core (brane) and a `hedgehog' scalar field configuration in the…
A classification result for Ricci-flat anti-self-dual asymptotically locally Euclidean 4-manifolds is obtained: they are either hyperk\"ahler (one of the gravitational instantons classified by Kronheimer), or they are a cyclic quotient of a…
We study instanton solutions and superpotentials for the large number of vacua of the plane-wave matrix model and a 2+1 dimensional Super Yang-Mills theory on $R\times S^2$ with sixteen supercharges. We get the superpotential in the weak…
We suggest a new explanation for the observed large scale flatness, homogeneity and isotropy of the universe. The basic ingredients are elementary and well-known, namely Einstein's theory of gravity and Hawking's method of computing…
This is a review of gravitational instantons -- solutions to Riemannian Einstein or Einstein-Maxwell equations in four dimensions which yield complete metrics on non-compact four-manifolds, and which asymptotically `look like' flat space.…
Physical properties of gravitational instantons which are derivable from minimal surfaces in 3-dimensional Euclidean space are examined using the Newman-Penrose formalism for Euclidean signature. The gravitational instanton that corresponds…
We give a complete classification of supersymmetric gravitational instantons in Euclidean N=2 supergravity coupled to vector multiplets. An interesting class of solutions is found which corresponds to the Euclidean analogue of stationary…