Worldvolume supersymmetries for branes in plane waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates the supersymmetries of M2 branes in a plane wave background, revealing additional linear supersymmetries at the quadratic level that are not preserved by interactions, with implications for understanding brane spectra.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of extra linear supersymmetries in the worldvolume theory of M2 branes in plane wave backgrounds, which are not maintained by interactions.

Findings

Quadratic level admits extra supersymmetries

Spectra form multiplets of these supersymmetries

Interactions do not preserve the additional supersymmetries

Abstract

We study the worldvolume supersymmetries of M2 branes in the maximally supersymmetric plane wave background of M theory. For certain embeddings the standard probe analysis indicates that the worldvolume theory has less than 16 supersymmetries. We show that at the quadratic level the worldvolume theory admits additional linearly realized supersymmetries, and that the spectra of the branes are organized into multiplets of these symmetries. We find however that these supersymmetries are not respected by worldvolume interactions. Our analysis was motivated by recent work showing that D-branes in the maximally supersymmetric plane wave background of IIB string theory admit supersymmetries beyond those of the probe analysis. The construction of the additional supercharges in this case was specific to a string worldsheet that is a strip and the present results suggest that string interactions do not preserve these symmetries.