On exceptional QP-manifolds

The connection between two recent descriptions of tensor hierarchies — namely, infinity-enhanced Leibniz algebroids, given by Bonezzi & Hohm and Lavau & Palmkvist, and the p-brane QP-manifolds constructed by Arvanitakis — is made precise. This is done by presenting a duality-covariant version of latter.

The construction is based on the QP-manifold T^⋆[n]T[1]M × ℋ[n], where M corresponds to the internal manifold of a supergravity compactification and ℋ[n] to a degree-shifted version of the infinity-enhanced Leibniz algebroid. Imposing that the canonical Q-structure on T^⋆[n]T[1]M is the derivative operator on ℋ leads to a set of constraints. Solutions to these constraints correspond to $\frac{1}{2}$ \( \frac{1}{2} \) -BPS p-branes, suggesting that this is a new incarnation of a brane scan. Reduction w.r.t. to these constraints reproduces the known p-brane QP-manifolds. This is shown explicitly for the SL(3)×SL(2)- and SL(5)-theories.

Furthermore, this setting is used to speculate about exceptional ‘extended spaces’ and QP-manifolds associated to Leibniz algebras. A proposal is made to realise differential graded manifolds associated to Leibniz algebras as non-Poisson subspaces (i.e. not Poisson reductions) of QP-manifolds similar to the above. Two examples for this proposal are discussed: generalised fluxes (including the dilaton flux) of O(d, d) and the 3-bracket flux for the SL(5)-theory.