Generalized complex structure
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In the field of mathematics known as differential geometry, a generalized complex structure is a property of a differential manifold that includes as special cases a complex structure and a symplectic structure. Generalized complex structures were introduced by Nigel Hitchin in 2002 and further developed by his students Marco Gualtieri and Gil Cavalcanti.
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These structures first arose in Hitchin's program of characterizing geometrical structures via functionals of differential forms, a connection which formed the basis of Robbert Dijkgraaf, Sergei Gukov, Andrew Neitzke and Cumrun Vafa's 2004 proposal that topological string theories are special cases of a topological M-theory. Today generalized complex structures also play a leading role in physical string theory, as supersymmetric flux compactifications, which relate 10-dimensional physics to 4-dimensional worlds like ours, require (possibly twisted) generalized complex structures.