A Superspace formulation of Yang-Mills theory on sphere

TL;DR

This paper develops a covariant superspace formulation of Yang-Mills theory on an n-dimensional sphere using supersymmetry, providing a unified framework for gauge fixing and mass terms.

Contribution

It introduces a supersphere formulation based on OSp(n+1|2) supersymmetry that encapsulates the BRST gauge-fixing and massive Curci-Ferrari models on the sphere.

Findings

Superspace formulation expresses the horizontality condition concisely.

Complete coverage of BRST gauge-fixing procedure on the sphere.

Inclusion of massive Curci-Ferrari model within the superspace framework.

Abstract

A superspace approach to the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) formalism for the Yang-Mills theory on an n-dimensional unit sphere, S_1^{n}, is developed in a manifestly covariant manner based on the rotational supersymmetry characterized by the supergroup OSp(n+1|2). This is done by employing an (n+2)-dimensional unit supersphere, S_1^{n|2}, parametrized by n commutative and 2 anticommutative coordinate variables so that it includes S_1^{n} as a subspace and realizes the OSp(n+1|2) supersymmetry. In this superspace formulation, referred to as the supersphere formulation, the so-called horizontality condition is concisely expressed in terms of the rank-3 field strength tensor of a Yang-Mills superfield on S_1^{n|2}. The supersphere formulation completely covers the BRST gauge-fixing procedure for the Yang-Mills theory on S_1^{n} provided by us [R. Banerjee and S. Deguchi, Phys. Lett. B 632 (2006) 579, arXiv:hep-th/0509161]. Furthermore, this formulation admits the (massive) Curci-Ferrari model defined on S_1^{n}, describing the gauge-fixing and mass terms on S_1^{n} together as a mass term on S_1^{n|2}.