Massive IIA supergravities

TL;DR

This paper systematically identifies all massive deformations of ten-dimensional IIA supergravity, revealing only two consistent possibilities—Romans and Howe-Lambert-West supergravities—and details their superspace formulations.

Contribution

It provides a complete classification of massive deformations of IIA supergravity and details the superspace formulation of Howe-Lambert-West supergravity.

Findings

Romans supergravity exists as a unique massive deformation.

Howe-Lambert-West supergravity is another consistent massive deformation.

The scalar superfield's existence is derived from superspace integrability conditions.

Abstract

We perform a systematic search for all possible massive deformations of IIA supergravity in ten dimensions. We show that there exist exactly two possibilities: Romans supergravity and Howe-Lambert-West supergravity. Along the way we give the full details of the ten-dimensional superspace formulation of the latter. The scalar superfield at canonical mass dimension zero (whose lowest component is the dilaton), present in both Romans and massless IIA supergravities, is not introduced from the outset but its existence follows from a certain integrability condition implied by the Bianchi identities. This fact leads to the possibility for a certain topological modification of massless IIA, reflecting an analogous situation in eleven dimensions.