Kaluza-Klein supergravity on AdS_3 x S^3

TL;DR

This paper constructs a three-dimensional N=8 supergravity theory with infinite-dimensional gauge symmetry, describing interactions of Kaluza-Klein modes from six-dimensional supergravity compactified on AdS_3 x S^3, revealing symmetry breaking and mass generation mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a novel gauged supergravity model with infinite-dimensional gauge group capturing Kaluza-Klein spectra from higher dimensions.

Findings

Constructed a Chern-Simons type gauged supergravity with infinite-dimensional gauge group.

Demonstrated symmetry breaking to AdS_3 x S^3 isometry group.

Showed how fields acquire masses via a Brout-Englert-Higgs-like mechanism.

Abstract

We construct a Chern-Simons type gauged N=8 supergravity in three spacetime dimensions with gauge group SO(4) x T_\infty over the infinite dimensional coset space SO(8,\infty)/(SO(8) x SO(\infty)), where T_\infty is an infinite dimensional translation subgroup of SO(8,\infty). This theory describes the effective interactions of the (infinitely many) supermultiplets contained in the two spin-1 Kaluza-Klein towers arising in the compactification of N=(2,0) supergravity in six dimensions on AdS_3 x S^3 with the massless supergravity multiplet. After the elimination of the gauge fields associated with T_\infty, one is left with a Yang Mills type gauged supergravity with gauge group SO(4), and in the vacuum the symmetry is broken to the (super-)isometry group of AdS_3 x S^3, with infinitely many fields acquiring masses by a variant of the Brout-Englert-Higgs effect.