Higher-derivative supersymmetric effective field theories

TL;DR

This paper develops systematic methods to eliminate ghosts in higher-derivative supersymmetric effective field theories, ensuring auxiliary fields remain non-dynamical and exploring applications to string theory compactifications.

Contribution

It introduces procedures for ghost removal in supersymmetric EFTs and analyzes auxiliary fields' behavior, with applications to SUSY embeddings and string compactifications.

Findings

Auxiliary fields remain non-dynamical after higher-derivative corrections.

Methods successfully embed SUSY versions of the DBI action.

Application to dimensional reduction in string theory contexts.

Abstract

In this paper we study higher-derivative supersymmetric effective field theories focusing on the systematic procedure for the elimination of ghosts from the spectrum. Particular attention is paid to the auxiliary fields, for which the higher-derivative terms induce non-algebraic equations of motion. By employing field redefinitions or the reduction of order procedure (both in component and superfield language) we show that the auxiliary fields remain non-dynamical in the EFT and that on shell they give rise to both derivative and non-derivative corrections to the scalar action. These methods are applied to the search for a SUSY embedding of the DBI action and to the dimensional reduction of HD terms for the K\"ahler moduli in type IIB string compactifications.