Flux and charge quantization in 11-dimensional supergravity

Determine a fully consistent, non-perturbative flux- and charge-quantization law for the C-field in D=11, N=1 supergravity that fixes the global higher gauge field content (including torsion charges) and is compatible with the supergravity equations of motion.

Background

Flux and charge quantization is necessary to complete local higher gauge field descriptions to globally well-defined non-perturbative field theories, as it determines torsion charges and the global structure of gauge potentials.

For the 11d supergravity C-field, quantization had been discussed largely in the bosonic sector and without imposing the supergravity equations of motion. The paper proposes a duality-symmetric superspace formulation and shows how this naturally leads to a quantizable super C-field flux compatible with on-shell 11d supergravity.

References

In \S\ref{SuperFluxQuantization} we address the open problem of flux- and charge-quantization (see ) of $D=11$, $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity (11d SuGra , review in ), explaining how this is a necessary step towards the completion of 11d SuGra to the conjectured ``M-theory'' .

— Flux Quantization on 11-dimensional Superspace (2403.16456 - Giotopoulos et al., 25 Mar 2024) in Overview and Results; Section 1 (Super-Flux Quantization of 11d SuGra)