We summarize the foliation approach to ${cal N}=1$ compactifications of eleven-dimensional supergravity on eight-manifolds $M$ down to $mathrm{AdS}_3$ spaces for the case when the internal part $xi$ of the supersymmetry generator is chiral on some pr
oper subset ${cal W}$ of $M$. In this case, a topological no-go theorem implies that the complement $Msetminus {cal W}$ must be a dense open subset, while $M$ admits a singular foliation ${bar {cal F}}$ (in the sense of Haefliger) which is defined by a closed one-form $boldsymbol{omega}$ and is endowed with a longitudinal $G_2$ structure. The geometry of this foliation is determined by the supersymmetry conditions. We also describe the topology of ${bar {cal F}}$ in the case when $boldsymbol{omega}$ is a Morse form.
We use geometric algebra techniques to give a synthetic and computationally efficient approach to Fierz identities in arbitrary dimensions and signatures, thus generalizing previous work. Our approach leads to a formulation which displays the underly
ing real, complex or quaternionic structure in an explicit and conceptually clear manner and is amenable to implementation in various symbolic computation systems. We illustrate our methods and results with a few examples which display the basic features of the three classes of pin representations governing the structure of such identities in various dimensions and signatures.
