Killing (super)algebras associated to connections on spinors

Abstract

We generalise the notion of a Killing superalgebra which arises in the physics literature on supergravity to general dimension, signature and choice of spinor module and squaring map, and also allowing for Lie algebras as well as superalgebras, capturing a set of examples of such algebras on higher-dimensional spheres. We demonstrate that the definition requires a connection on a spinor bundle -- provided by supersymmetry transformations in the supergravity examples and by the Killing spinor equation on the spheres -- and obtain a set of sufficient conditions on such a connection for the Killing (super)algebra to exist. We show that these (super)algebras are filtered deformations of graded subalgebras of (a generalisation of) the Poincar\'e superalgebra and then study such deformations abstractly using Spencer cohomology. In the highly supersymmetric Lorentzian case, we describe the filtered subdeformations which are of the appropriate form to arise as Killing superalgebras, lay out a classification scheme for their odd-generated subalgebras and prove that, under certain technical conditions, there exist homogeneous Lorentzian spin manifolds on which these deformations are realised as Killing superalgebras. Our results generalise previous work in the 11-dimensional supergravity literature.