Chiral anomalies in six dimensions from harmonic superspace

TL;DR

This paper develops a superfield approach using harmonic superspace to compute chiral anomalies in six-dimensional ${ m N}=(1,0)$ supersymmetric gauge theories, highlighting the role of matter and ghost hypermultiplets.

Contribution

It introduces a novel harmonic superspace method for calculating chiral anomalies in 6D supersymmetric gauge theories, including a superform formulation for the anomalous current multiplet.

Findings

Computed covariant and consistent chiral anomalies in 6D supersymmetric theories.

Identified matter and ghost hypermultiplets as sources of anomalies.

Provided a superform formulation for the anomalous current multiplet.

Abstract

We develop a superfield approach to compute chiral anomalies in general ${\cal N}=(1,0)$ supersymmetric gauge theories in six dimensions. Within the harmonic-superspace formulation for these gauge theories, the anomalous contributions to the effective action only come from matter and ghost hypermultiplets. By studying the short-distance behaviour of the propagator for the hypermultiplet coupled to a background vector multiplet, we compute the covariant and consistent chiral anomalies. We also provide a superform formulation for the non-abelian anomalous current multiplet in general ${\cal N}=(1,0)$ supersymmetric gauge theories.