Contributor info: Dr Matteo Zatti

Carmen Gómez-Fayrén, Tomás Ortín, Matteo Zatti

SciPost Phys. Core 8, 010 (2025) · published 29 January 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We show that, in presence of isometries and non-trivial topology, the Einstein–Hilbert action is invariant under certain transformations of the metric which are not diffeomorphisms. These transformations are similar to the higher-form symmetries of field theories with $p$-form fields. In the context of toroidal Kaluza–Klein compactifications, we show that these symmetries give rise to some of the "hidden symmetries" (dualities) of the dimensionally-reduced theories.

Jose Juan Fernandez-Melgarejo, Giacomo Giorgi, Carmen Gomez-Fayren, Tomas Ortin, Matteo Zatti

SciPost Phys. Core 7, 068 (2024) · published 17 October 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The dualization of the scalar fields of a theory into $(d-2)$-form potentials preserving all the global symmetries is one of the main problems in the construction of democratic pseudoactions containing simultaneously all the original fields and their duals. We study this problem starting with the simplest cases and we show how it can be solved for scalars parametrizing Riemannian symmetric $\sigma$-models as in maximal and half-maximal supergravities. Then, we use this result to write democratic pseudoactions for theories in which the scalars are non-minimally coupled to $(p+1)$-form potentials in any dimension. These results include a proposal of democratic pseudoaction for the generic bosonic sector of 4-dimensional maximal and half-maximal ungauged supergravities. Furthermore, we propose a democratic pseudoaction for the bosonic sector of $\mathcal{N}=2B,d=10$ supergravity (the effective action of the type IIB superstring theory) containing two 0-, two 2-, one 4-, two 6- and three 8-forms which is manifestly invariant under global SL$(2,\mathbb{R})$ transformations.

Tomás Ortín, Alejandro Ruipérez, Matteo Zatti

SciPost Phys. Core 6, 072 (2023) · published 31 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We compute the first-order $\alpha'$ corrections to well-known families of heterotic multi-center black-hole solutions in five and four dimensions. The solutions can be either supersymmetric or non-supersymmetric, depending on the relative sign between two of the black-hole charges. For both cases, we find that the equilibrium of forces persists after including the $\alpha'$ corrections, as the existence of multi-center solutions free of unphysical singularities shows. We analyze the possibility of black-hole fragmentation.