Flux quantization in dilatonic Taub-NUT dyons (1801.02586v3)

Abstract: Spacetimes that include a boundary at infinity have a non-trivial topology. The homology of the background influences gauge fields living on them and lead to topological charges. We investigate the charges and fluxes of fields over a Taub--NUT background in Einstein--Maxwell dilaton--axion gravity, by using the relative homology and de Rham cohomology. It turns out that the electromagnetic sector is devoid of restrictions from a topological viewpoint. There are, however, flux quanta for the axion and dilaton fields. These results are obtained from the absolute homology of the spacetime boundary. The solutions we probe originate in the four dimensional low energy limit of heterotic string theory. So our results are complemented by the stringy coupling present in the fields. The quantization has a bundle theoretic interpretation as the axion's flux corresponds to the topological index of an underlying 2-bundle.