We present a countably infinite number of new explicit co-homogeneity one Sasaki-Einstein metrics on S 2 × S 3 of both quasi-regular and irregular type. These give rise to new solutions of type IIB supergravity which are expected to be dual to N = 1 superconformal field theories in four dimensions with compact or non-compact R-symmetry and rational or irrational central charges, respectively.

We show that the Reeb vector, and hence in particular the volume, of a Sasaki-Einstein metric on the base of a toric Calabi-Yau cone of complex dimension n may be computed by minimising a function Z on R n which depends only on the toric data that defines the singularity. In this way one can extract certain geometric information for a toric Sasaki-Einstein manifold without finding the metric explicitly. For complex dimension n = 3 the Reeb vector and the volume correspond to the R-symmetry and the a central charge of the AdS/CFT dual superconformal field theory, respectively. We therefore interpret this extremal problem as the geometric dual of a-maximisation. We illustrate our results with some examples, including the Y p,q singularities and the complex cone over the second del Pezzo surface.

We study a variational problem whose critical point determines the Reeb vector field for a Sasaki-Einstein manifold. This extends our previous work on Sasakian geometry by lifting the condition that the manifolds are toric. We show that the Einstein-Hilbert action, restricted to a space of Sasakian metrics on a link L in a Calabi-Yau cone X, is the volume functional, which in fact is a function on the space of Reeb vector fields. We relate this function both to the DuistermaatHeckman formula and also to a limit of a certain equivariant index on X that counts holomorphic functions. Both formulae may be evaluated by localisation. This leads to a general formula for the volume function in terms of topological fixed point data. As a result we prove that the volume of a Sasaki-Einstein manifold, relative to that of the round sphere, is always an algebraic number. In complex dimension n = 3 these results provide, via AdS/CFT, the geometric counterpart of a-maximisation in four dimensional superconformal field theories. We also show that our variational problem dynamically sets to zero the Futaki invariant of the transverse space, the latter being an obstruction to the existence of a Kähler-Einstein metric.

We systematically analyse the necessary and sufficient conditions for the preservation of supersymmetry for bosonic geometries of the form Ê 1,9−d × M d , in the common NS-NS sector of type II string theory and also type I/heterotic string theory. The results are phrased in terms of the intrinsic torsion of G-structures and provide a comprehensive classification of static supersymmetric backgrounds in these theories. Generalised calibrations naturally appear since the geometries always admit NS or type I/heterotic fivebranes wrapping calibrated cycles.Some new solutions are presented. In particular we find d = 6 examples with a fibred structure which preserve N = 1, 2, 3 supersymmetry in type II and include compact type I/heterotic geometries.

We consider non-relativistic conformal quantum mechanical theories that arise by doing discrete light cone quantization of field theories. If the field theory has a gravity dual, then the conformal quantum mechanical theory can have a gravity dual description in a suitable finite temperature and finite density regime. Using this we compute the thermodynamic properties of the system. We give an explicit example where we display both the conformal quantum mechanical theory as well as the gravity dual. We also discuss the string theory embedding of certain backgrounds with non-relativistic conformal symmetry that were recently discussed. Using this, we construct finite temperature and finite density solutions, with asymptotic non-relativistic conformal symmetry. In addition, we derive consistent Kaluza-Klein truncations of type IIB supergravity to a five dimensional theory with massive vector fields.