Reductions of exceptional field theories

Abstract

Abstract Double Field Theory (DFT) and Exceptional Field Theory (EFT), collectively called ExFTs, have proven to be a remarkably powerful new framework for string and M-theory. Exceptional field theories were constructed on a case by case basis as often each EFT has its own idiosyncrasies. Intuitively though, an En − 1(n − 1) EFT must be contained in an En(n) ExFT. In this paper we propose a generalised Kaluza-Klein ansatz to relate different ExFTs. We then discuss in more detail the different aspects of the relationship between various ExFTs including the coordinates, section condition and (pseudo)-Lagrangian densities. For the E8(8) EFT we describe a generalisation of the Mukhi-Papageorgakis mechanism to relate the d = 3 topological term in the E8(8) EFT to a Yang-Mills action in the E7(7) EFT.