BPS equations in six and eight dimensions - art. no. 025021

We consider the maximal supersymmetric pure Yang-Mills theories on six and eight dimensional space. We determine, in a systematic way, all the possible fractions of supersymmetry preserved by the BPS states and present the corresponding "self-dual" BPS equations. In six dimensions the intrinsic one has 1/4 supersymmetry, while in eight dimensions, 1/16, 2/16, ..., 6/16. We apply our results to some explicit BPS configurations of finite or infinite energy on commutative or noncommutative spaces.