New D = 10, N = 1 superspace supergravity and local symmetries of superstrings

Abstract

The superspace formulation of new D = 10, N = 1 supergravity is developed. It is shown that the background superspace of the new theory can be coupled to a test superstring in such a way that the local symmetries of the superstring are intact. This formulation necessarily makes use of the Vainberg construction so the action is analogous to the effective action for QCD with the WZW term. The results suggest that the ambiguity between the massless two-form and six-form in the SO(32) or E 8 × E 8 superstring theories can only be resolved by a gauge invariant, Lorentz-covariant formulation of superstring field theory.