Supersymmetry - Roots That Didn't Grow

TL;DR

This paper explores the early historical development of supersymmetry, highlighting initial ideas and models from the 1940s and 1950s, before its full mathematical structure was understood.

Contribution

It uncovers the early roots of supersymmetry in literature, emphasizing initial models and ideas that predate its modern formalization.

Findings

Early models recognized the role of partners in reducing divergences.

Key features like extension of Poincaré group were not known at the time.

No supersymmetric non-abelian quantum field theories existed then.

Abstract

This article is about early roots of supersymmetry, as found in the literature from 1940s and early 1950s. There were models where the power of "partners" in alleviating divergences in quantum field theory was recognized. However, other currently known remarkable features of supersymmetry, such as its role in the extension of the Poincar\'{e} group, were not known. There were, of course, no supersymmetric non-abelian quantum field theories in those days.