Supersymmetric Domain Walls from Metrics of Special Holonomy

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Supersymmetric domain-wall spacetimes that lift to Ricci-flat solutions of M-theory admit generalized Heisenberg (2-step nilpotent) isometry groups. These metrics may be obtained from known cohomogeneity one metrics of special holonomy by taking a "Heisenberg limit", based on an Inönü-Wigner contraction of the isometry group. Associated with each such metric is an Einstein metric with negative cosmological constant on a solvable group manifold. We discuss the relevance of our metrics to the resolution of singularities in domain-wall spacetimes and some applications to holography. The extremely simple forms of the explicit metrics suggest that they will be useful for many other applications. We also give new but incomplete inhomogeneous metrics of holonomy SU(3), G₂ and Spin(7), which are T₁, T₂ and T₃ bundles respectively over hyper-Kähler four-manifolds.