N=(4,4) Type IIA String Theory on PP-Wave Background

TL;DR

This paper constructs the Green-Schwarz superstring action for type IIA strings on a ten-dimensional pp-wave background derived from eleven-dimensional geometry, revealing supersymmetry properties and field content.

Contribution

It presents the explicit form of the IIA superstring action on a pp-wave background with detailed supersymmetry analysis, a novel derivation from eleven-dimensional geometry.

Findings

The background has 24 Killing spinors, with 16 non-linearly realized supersymmetries.

The string action exhibits dynamical N=(4,4) supersymmetry.

The field content includes two free massive supermultiplets.

Abstract

We construct IIA GS superstring action on the ten-dimensional pp-wave background, which arises as the compactification of eleven-dimensional pp-wave geometry along the isometry direction. The background geometry has 24 Killing spinors and among them, 16 components correspond to the non-linearly realized kinematical supersymmetry in the string action. The remaining eight components are linearly realized and shown to be independent of x^+ coordinate, which is identified with the world-sheet time coordinate of the string action in the light-cone gauge. The resultant dynamical N=(4,4) supersymmetry is investigated, which is shown to be consistent with the field contents of the action containing two free massive supermultiplets.