Abstract

Finding consistent truncations of 10/11-dimensional supergravity is a notoriously difficult problem. Exceptional field theory, a rewriting of supergravity which treats p-form and metric degrees of freedom on the same footing, has recently been shown to be a powerful tool in constructing new maximally-supersymmetric consistent truncations and proving the consistency of the famous S^{4, S}5 and S^7 truncations of 10/11-dimensional supergravity. In this talk, I will review these developments and show how to generalise the approach to obtain half-maximal consistent truncations. I will also prove a conjecture by Gauntlett and Varela that any half-maximally supersymmetric warped AdS solution of 10/11-dimensional supergravity admits a consistent truncation to the graviton supermultiplet. If time permits, I will also show how the methods introduced allow one to study the moduli of half-maximal AdS / Minkowski flux vacua.