Geometric U-folds in four dimensions

Abstract

We describe a general construction of geometric U-folds compatible with a non-trivial extension of the global formulation of four-dimensional extended supergravity on a differentiable spin manifold. The topology of geometric U-folds depends on certain flat fiber bundles which encode how supergravity fields are globally glued together. We show that smooth non-trivial U-folds of this type can exist only in theories where both the scalar and space-time manifolds have non-trivial fundamental group and in addition the scalar map of the solution is homotopically non-trivial. Consistency with string theory requires smooth geometric U-folds to be glued using subgroups of the effective discrete U-duality group, implying that the fundamental group of the scalar manifold of such solutions must be a subgroup of the latter. We construct simple examples of geometric U-folds in a generalization of the axion–dilaton model of supergravity coupled to a single vector multiplet, whose scalar manifold is a generally non-compact Riemann surface of genus at least two endowed with its uniformizing metric. We also discuss the relation between geometric U-folds and a moduli space of flat connections defined on the scalar manifold, which involves certain character varieties not studied in the literature.