Supersymmetry of M-Branes at Angles
Nobuyoshi Ohta, Paul K. Townsend
TL;DR
The paper addresses which fractions of supersymmetry can be preserved by two intersecting M-5-branes, focusing on non-orthogonal, pointlike intersections. It presents an exhaustive algebraic Killing spinor analysis where the second brane is rotated relative to the first by five angles, yielding a comprehensive set of allowed fractions $\nu$. The main contributions are the identification of two new fractions, $\nu=3/32$ and $\nu=5/32$, realized only for particular angle configurations (with $5/32$ requiring fixed angles), and the organization of all possible fractions across cases with five, four, three, two, or one independent angles. These results illuminate the landscape of supersymmetric brane intersections, with implications for worldvolume field theories, dualities, and potential connections to reduced holonomy in compactifications, while suggesting avenues for explicit supergravity solutions and further duality analyses.
Abstract
We determine the possible fractions of supersymmetry preserved by two intersecting M-5-branes. These include the fractions 3/32 and 5/32 which have not occurred previously in intersecting brane configurations. Both occur in non-orthogonal pointlike intersections of M-5-branes but 5/32 supersymmetry is possible only for specific fixed angles.