SUSY vs E8 Gauge Theory in 11 Dimensions

TL;DR

This paper investigates the relationship between E8 gauge theory and 11-dimensional supergravity, exploring constraints for a potential gauge theory description of M-theory and attempting to construct the gravitino as a condensate.

Contribution

It analyzes constraints for an E8 gauge theory to reproduce 11d supergravity and explores the possibility of gravitino emergence as a gauge condensate.

Findings

Constraints for E8 gauge theory to match 11d physics

Proposed approximate construction of the 11d gravitino

Insights into gauge theory and supergravity relationship

Abstract

Diaconescu, Moore and Witten have shown that the topological part of the M-theory partition function is an invariant of an E8 gauge bundle over the 11-dimensional bulk. This presents a puzzle as an 11d gauge theory cannot exhibit linearly realized supersymmetry. One possibility is that the gauge theory is nonsupersymmetric and flows to 11d SUGRA only in the infrared, with SUSY arising as a low energy accidental degeneracy. Although no such gauge theory has been constructed, any such construction must satisfy a number of constraints in order to correctly reproduce the known 10-dimensional physics on each boundary component. We analyze these constraints and in particular use them to attempt an approximate construction of the 11d gravitino as a condensate of the gauge theory fields.