Spinor Superfield Research Articles

The spinning superparticle

Doubly graded massless supersymmetric particle models with both world-line local and space-time global supersymmetry are considered. We describe the first quantization of the model with four-dimensional space-time and N=1 world-line SUSY. Using the Gupta-Bleuler method we obtain as the super wave-function a pair of D=4 chiral spinor superfields with the on-shell spectrum containing scalar and vector multiplets.

Supercurrents and superconformal symmetry.

A superspace variational formulation of supercurrents and their associated anomalies is presented, with emphasis on showing its foundation on superconformal symmetry. Parameters of superconformal transformations are embedded in a spinor superfield, in terms of which local-superconformal variations of superfields are defined. The one-loop supercurrent anomalies are calculated for the Wess-Zumino model and supersymmetric QED by the path-integral method.

Energy-momentum tensors, supercurrents, (super)traces, and quantum equivalence

We show that although different field representations (e.g. representations of spin-zero particles by scalar and antisymmetric tensor fields) give rise to different trace anomalies in gravitational backgrounds, their quantum energy-momentum tensors and in particular their traces ( total trace, i.e., anomalous + nonanomalous parts) are the same. For supersymmetric systems (e.g. representations of the scalar multiplet by chiral scalar or chiral spinor superfields) the quantum supercurrents and supertraces again are the same (and in particular the one-loop ∂ m j m (5), γ· S, T m m form a multiplet).

Supercurrents in extended supersymmetry

Using the generalization of Noether's theorem to superspace, spinor superfields in extended superspace are derived that satisfy generalized conservation equations. These spinor superfields are superspace moments involving the superconformal parameters of vector indexed supercurrents as in the unextended case. The vector indexed supercurrents obtained in this fashion are simply related to the usual scalar supercurrents in extended superspace.

Formula omitted] superfield of O(2) supergravity

We show that there are only two minimal ( 3 2 , 1) multiplets, only one of which can form an O(2) multiplet with (non-minimal) O(1) supergravity. Both are described by a spinor superfield, with or without compensating superfields.

Gauge spinor superfield as scalar multiplet

A chiral spinor superfield, with an appropriate gauge invariance, describes a scalar multiplet consisting of a scalar, an antisymmetric-tensor gauge field, a Weyl spinor, and no auxiliary fields.

Superfield equations of motion

A general method for deriving the superfield equations of motion is proposed. These equations contain the supplementary conditions of irreducibility with respect to the supersymmetry group. The method uses projection operators which single out the irreducible representations and especially the algebraic roots of these operators. It is found that the standard equations of motion for spin-vector and symmetric tensor fields can in fact be obtained by extracting the square roots of the projection operators for spin-3/2 and spin-2, respectively. The spinor superfield equation is deduced and discussed in detail.

Spinor Yang-Mills superfields

Following the example provided by the ordinary derivative and vector Yang-Mills fields, we give an argument which demonstrates that spinor superfields may be combined with the fermionic components of the invariant superspace gradient in order to define a fermionic, supersymmetric Yang-Mills covariant derivative. Additionally, it is shown that this fermionic, covariant gradient is the "square root" of a bosonic covariant gradient. Thus, it is possible to define a "supercovariant derivative" in superspace. We also discuss some general aspects of supersymmetric, Yang-Mills theories.

The spinor superfield and Bose-fermi symmetry

If one uses the superspace techniques of Salam and Strathdee, a new supersymmetric Lagrangian involving Dirac and Duffin-Kemmer component fields is obtained. A simple interaction Lagrangian of this spinor superfield with the scalar superfield is studied in perturbation theory, where it is shown that although the Lagrangian is not renormalizable at the 1-loop level, remarkable cancellations of divergences occur leaving only logarithmic and quadratic infinities.