Domain Walls and Spaces of Special Holonomy
Abstract
Description
We review the relations between a family of domain-wall solutions to M-theory and gravitational instantons with special holonomy. When oxidized into the maximal-dimension parent supergravity, the transverse spaces of these domain walls become cohomogeneity-one spaces with generalized Heisenberg symmetries and a homothetic conformal symmetry. These metrics may also be obtained as scaling limits of generalized Eguchi-Hanson metrics, or, with appropriate discrete identifications, from generalized Atiyah-Hitchin metrics, thus providing field-theoretic realizations of string-theory orientifolds.
9 pages, Latex, uses amssymb macro
9 pages, Latex, uses amssymb macro