Strongly Coupled Gravity and Duality

TL;DR

This paper proposes a hypothetical 6-dimensional (4,0) superconformal field theory as a strong coupling limit of 5D N=8 supergravity, suggesting a new perspective on gravitational duality and higher-dimensional theories.

Contribution

It introduces a novel 6D (4,0) superconformal field theory that could serve as a strong coupling limit of 5D supergravity, extending the concept of electromagnetic duality to gravitational triality.

Findings

Proposes a 6D (4,0) superconformal field theory with self-dual 2-forms and a tensor gauge field.

Shows dimensional reduction reproduces 5D maximal supergravity.

Suggests a gravitational triality extending electromagnetic duality.

Abstract

A strong coupling limit of theories whose low-energy effective field theory is 5-dimensional N=8 supergravity is proposed in which the gravitational coupling becomes large. It is argued that, if this limit exists, it should be a 6-dimensional theory with (4,0) supersymmetry compactified on a circle whose radius gives the 5-dimensional Planck length. The sector corresponding to the D=5 supergravity multiplet is a (4,0) D=6 superconformal field theory based on the (4,0) multiplet with 27 self-dual 2-forms, 42 scalars and, instead of a graviton, a fourth-rank tensor gauge field satisfying a self-duality constraint. The superconformal field theory has 32 supersymmetries and 32 conformal supersymmetries and its dimensional reduction gives the maximal supergravity in five dimensions. Electromagnetic duality generalises to a gravitational triality.