Compact and Noncompact Gauged Maximal Supergravities in Three Dimensions

TL;DR

This paper explores the structure and classification of maximally supersymmetric gauged supergravities in three dimensions, revealing their rich gauge group possibilities and potential implications for supergravity theories beyond eleven dimensions.

Contribution

It systematically classifies all possible gauge groups in three-dimensional maximal supergravity and analyzes their supersymmetric ground states and symmetries.

Findings

Rich gauge group structures including E_8 and noncompact forms of E_7, E_6, F_4, G_2.

Existence of maximally supersymmetric ground states with superextensions of SO(2,2).

Implication of a new supergravity framework beyond D=11 supergravity.

Abstract

We present the maximally supersymmetric three-dimensional gauged supergravities. Owing to the special properties of three dimensions -- especially the on-shell duality between vector and scalar fields, and the purely topological character of (super)gravity -- they exhibit an even richer structure than the gauged supergravities in higher dimensions. The allowed gauge groups are subgroups of the global E_8 symmetry of ungauged N=16 supergravity. They include the regular series SO(p,8-p) x SO(p,8-p) for all p=0,1,...,4, the group E_8 itself, as well as various noncompact forms of the exceptional groups E_7, E_6 and F_4 x G_2. We show that all these theories admit maximally supersymmetric ground states, and determine their background isometries, which are superextensions of the anti-de Sitter group SO(2,2). The very existence of these theories is argued to point to a new supergravity beyond the standard D=11 supergravity.