Consistent compactification of double field theory on non-geometric flux backgrounds

Abstract

In this paper, we construct non-trivial solutions to the $2D$-dimensional field equations of Double Field Theory (DFT) by using a consistent Scherk-Schwarz ansatz. The ansatz identifies $2(D-d)$ internal directions with a twist $U^M{}_N$ which is directly connected to the covariant fluxes $\mathcal{F}_{ABC}$. It exhibits $2(D-d)$ linear independent generalized Killing vectors $K_I{}^J$ and gives rise to a gauged supergravity in $d$ dimensions. We analyze the covariant fluxes and the corresponding gauged supergravity with a Minkowski vacuum. We calculate fluctuations around such vacua and show how they gives rise to massive scalars field and vectors field with a non-abelian gauge algebra. Because DFT is a background independent theory, these fields should directly correspond the string excitations in the corresponding background. For $(D-d)=3$ we perform a complete scan of all allowed covariant fluxes and find two different kinds of backgrounds: the single and the double elliptic case. The later is not T-dual to a geometric background and cannot be transformed to a geometric setting by a field redefinition either. While this background fulfills the strong constraint, it is still consistent with the Killing vectors depending on the coordinates and the winding coordinates, thereby giving a non-geometric patching. This background can therefore not be described in Supergravity or Generalized Geometry.