Different representations for the action principle in 4D N = 2 supergravity

TL;DR

This paper compares two methods for reducing superfield actions to component form in 4D N=2 supergravity, highlighting a novel approach that preserves all gauge symmetries and deriving new results like the superfield c-map.

Contribution

It introduces a gauge-symmetry-preserving component reduction method and develops a normal coordinate approach applicable to any supergravity theory.

Findings

Derived the superfield c-map from supergravity.

Developed differential equations for vielbein and connection in normal coordinates.

Reconstructed superdeterminant without detailed vielbein knowledge.

Abstract

Within the superspace formulation for four-dimensional N = 2 matter-coupled supergravity developed in arXiv:0805.4683, we elaborate two approaches to reduce the superfield action to components. One of them is based on the principle of projective invariance which is a purely N = 2 concept having no analogue in simple supergravity. In this approach, the component reduction of the action is performed without imposing any Wess-Zumino gauge condition, that is by keeping intact all the gauge symmetries of the superfield action, including the super-Weyl invariance. As a simple application, the c-map is derived for the first time from superfield supergravity. Our second approach to component reduction is based on the method of normal coordinates around a submanifold in a curved superspace, which we develop in detail. We derive differential equations which are obeyed by the vielbein and the connection in normal coordinates, and which can be used to reconstruct these objects, in principle in closed form. A separate equation is found for the super-determinant of the vielbein, which allows one to reconstruct it without a detailed knowledge of the vielbein. This approach is applicable to any supergravity theory in any number of space-time dimensions. As a simple application of this construction, we reduce an integral over the curved N = 2 superspace to that over the chiral subspace of the full superspace. We also give a new representation for the curved projective-superspace action principle as a chiral integral.