Radiative corrections in 2 + 1 dimensional supergravity

Abstract

Supergravity in 2 + 1 dimensions has a set of first-class constraints that result in two bosonic and one fermionic gauge invariances. When one uses Faddeev–Popov quantization, these gauge invariances result in four fermionic scalar ghosts and two bosonic Majorana spinor ghosts. The BRST invariance of the effective Lagrangian is found. As an example of a radiative correction, we compute the phase of the one-loop effective action in the presence of a background spin connection, and show that it vanishes. This indicates that unlike a spinor coupled to a gauge field in 2 + 1 dimensions, there is no dynamical generation of a topological mass in this model. An additional example of how a BRST invariant effective action can arise in a gauge theory is provided in Appendix B where the BRST effective action for the classical Palatini action in 1 + 1 dimensions is examined.