Vertical versus diagonal dimensional reduction for \(p\)-branes (Q5917490)

In addition to the double dimensional reduction procedure that employs world-volume Killing symmetries of \(p\)-brane supergravity solutions and acts diagonally on a plot of \(p\) versus space-time dimension \(D\), there exists a second procedure of ``vertical'' reduction. This reduces the transverse-space dimension via an integral that superposes solutions to the underlying Laplace equation. We show that vertical reduction is also closely related to the recently introduced notion of intersecting \(p\)-branes. We illustrate this with examples, and also construct a new \(D=11\) solution describing four intersecting membranes, which preserves \(\frac{1}{16}\) of the assymetry. Given the two reduction schemes plus duality transformations at special points of the scalar modulus space, one may relate most of the \(p\)-brane solutions of relevance to superstring theory. We argue that the maximum classifying duality symmetry for this purpose is the Weyl group of the corresponding Cremmer-Julia supergravity symmetry \(E_{r(+r)}\). We also discuss a separate class of duality-invariant \(p\)-branes with \(p = D - 3\).