New higher-derivative couplings in 4D N = 2 supergravity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for constructing higher-derivative couplings in 4D N=2 supergravity using off-shell formulations and projective multiplets, connecting to previous component calculus approaches.

Contribution

It presents a novel construction to generate higher-derivative couplings from projective multiplets, extending the toolkit for supergravity model building.

Findings

Constructed a mechanism to produce higher-derivative couplings from real projective multiplets.

Established equivalence with previous superconformal tensor calculus methods for certain multiplets.

Provided explicit examples with tensor and O(2n) multiplets.

Abstract

Using the off-shell formulation for general N = 2 supergravity-matter systems developed in arXiv:0905.0063, we propose a construction to generate a restricted chiral superfield from any real weight-zero projective multiplet L. One can choose L to be composed of tensor multiplets, O(2n) multiplets, with n=2,3,..., and polar hypermultiplets. In conjunction with the standard procedure to induce a N = 2 linear multiplet from any chiral weight-one scalar, we obtain a powerful mechanism to generate higher-derivative couplings in supergravity. In the case that L is a homogeneous function of n tensor multiplets of degree zero, we show that our construction is equivalent to that developed by de Wit and Saueressig in arXiv:hep-th/0606148 using the component superconformal tensor calculus. We also work out nontrivial examples with L composed of O(2n)and tensor multiplets.