Type IIA orientifold compactification on SU(2)-structure manifolds

Understand

We investigate the effective theory of type IIA string theory on six-dimensional orientifold backgrounds with SU(2)-structure.

• We focus on the case of orientifolds with O6-planes, for which we compute the bosonic effective action in the supergravity approximation.
• For a generic SU(2)-structure background, we find that the low-energy effective theory is a gauged N=2 supergravity where moduli in both vector and hypermultiplets are charged.
• Since all these supergravities descend from a corresponding N=4 background, their scalar target space is always a quotient of a SU(1,1)/U(1) x SO(6,n)/SO(6)xSO(n) coset, and is therefore also very constrained.