Published for SISSA by Springer Received: September 3, 2010 Accepted: October 26, 2010 Published: November 18, 2010 U-dual fluxes and Generalized Geometry JHEP11(2010)083 G. Aldazabal,a,b E. Andr´es,b P.G. C´amarac and M. Gra˜nad aCentro At´omico Bariloche, 8400 S.C. de Bariloche, Argentina bInstituto Balseiro (CNEA-UNC) and CONICET, 8400 S.C. de Bariloche, Argentina cCERN, PH-TH Division, CH-1211 Gen`eve 23, Switzerland dInstitut de Physique Th´eorique, CEA/ Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France E-mail:
[email protected],
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[email protected] Abstract: We perform a systematic analysis of generic string flux compactifications, making use of Exceptional Generalized Geometry (EGG) as an organizing principle. In particular, we establish the precise map between fluxes, gaugings of maximal 4d supergrav- ity and EGG, identifying the complete set of gaugings that admit an uplift to 10d heterotic or type IIB supegravity backgrounds. Our results reveal a rich structure, involving new deformations of 10d supergravity backgrounds, such as the RR counterparts of the β- deformation. These new deformations are expected to provide the natural extension of the β-deformation to full-fledged F-theory backgrounds. Our analysis also provides some clues on the 10d origin of some of the particularly less well understood gaugings of 4d supergrav- ity. Finally, we derive the explicit expression for the effective superpotential in arbitrary = 1 heterotic or type IIB orientifold compactifications, for all the allowed