The Conformal Hyperplet

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new finite off-shell hypermultiplet with no central charge, explores its superconformal realization to address ghost issues, and discusses its potential connection to off-shell ${\cal N}=4$ Super Yang-Mills theory.

Contribution

It presents a novel off-shell hypermultiplet with no central charge and demonstrates how superconformal symmetry can resolve ghost-like instabilities.

Findings

Constructed a finite off-shell hypermultiplet with 192+192 degrees of freedom.

Superconformal realization cures ghost-like propagators.

Links to supergravity suggest potential off-shell formulation of ${\cal N}=4$ SYM.

Abstract

We introduce a finite off-shell hypermultiplet with no off-shell central charge. This requires 192+192 degrees of freedom, all but 8+8 of which are auxiliary or gauge. In the absence of supergravity, the model has a saddle-point vacuum instability implying ghost-like propagators. These are cured by realizing the model superconformally, such that the erstwhile ghosts are realized as compensators. Gauge fixing these links the physical hypermultiplets to supergravity. This evokes the prospect of realizing ${\cal N}=4$ Super Yang-Mills theory off-shell.