A special road to AdS vacua

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We apply the techniques of special Kaehler geometry to investigate AdS_4 vacua of general N=2 gauged supergravities underlying flux compactifications of type II theories.

• We formulate the scalar potential and its extremization conditions in terms of a triplet of prepotentials P_x and their special Kaehler covariant derivatives only, in a form that recalls the potential and the attractor equations of N=2 black holes.
• We propose a system of first order equations for the P_x which generalize the supersymmetry conditions and yield non-supersymmetric vacua.
• Special geometry allows us to recast these equations in algebraic form, and we find an infinite class of new N=0 and N=1 AdS_4 solutions, displaying a rich pattern of non-trivial charges associated with NSNS and RR fluxes.