Four dimensional supersymmetrization of R^4

TL;DR

This paper reviews the supersymmetrization of the R^4 correction in four-dimensional N=1,2 supergravity, highlighting the challenges in eliminating auxiliary fields in the presence of this correction.

Contribution

It demonstrates that auxiliary fields from multiplets with physical fields cannot be eliminated on-shell when including the R^4 correction in old minimal supergravity formulations.

Findings

Auxiliary fields from physical multiplets remain after on-shell conditions.

Auxiliary fields from compensating multiplets without physical fields can be eliminated.

Results are conjectured to hold for other supergravity formulations.

Abstract

We review our recent works on the supersymmetrization of the leading string correction (the R^4 term) to N=1,2 supergravity theories in four dimensions. We show that, in the "old minimal" formulations of these theories, when going on-shell in the presence of this correction, the auxiliary fields which come from multiplets with physical fields cannot be eliminated, but those ones that come from compensating multiplets without any physical fields can be eliminated. We conjecture similar results for other versions of these theories.