Massive IIA String Theory and Matrix Theory Compactification

TL;DR

The authors formulate a nonperturbative Matrix Theory description of Romans' massive Type IIA supergravity by compactifying M-theory on a twisted torus and mapping to a decoupled D3-brane NCYM theory with a space-dependent noncommutativity parameter. They derive the NC structure from Matrix Theory constraints, establish a Seiberg–Witten limit in curved backgrounds, and show that the resulting spectrum and symmetries reproduce key aspects of massive IIA in light-cone quantization. A holographic dual is constructed via a sequence of T-dual configurations, yielding a gravity background encoding the NCYM dynamics and confirming consistency with AdS/CFT-like expectations. The work opens routes to extend Matrix-model descriptions to other massive reductions and flux compactifications, with potential links to Type IA and de Sitter solutions.

Abstract

We propose a Matrix Theory approach to Romans' massive Type IIA supergravity. It is obtained by applying the procedure of Matrix Theory compactifications to Hull's proposal of the Massive Type IIA String Theory as M-Theory on a twisted torus. The resulting Matrix Theory is a super-Yang Mills theory on large N three-branes with a space dependent non-commutativity parameter, which is also independently derived by a T-duality approach. We give evidence showing that the energies of a class of physical excitations of the super-Yang Mills theory show the correct symmetry expected from Massive Type IIA string theory in a lightcone quantization.