Non(anti)commutative SYM theory: Renormalization in superspace

TL;DR

This paper investigates the one-loop renormalizability of nonanticommutative N=1/2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in superspace, revealing that a modified action is needed for renormalizability and computing its beta functions.

Contribution

It introduces a renormalizable N=1/2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills action compatible with star product algebra, advancing understanding of nonanticommutative gauge theories.

Findings

The naive nonanticommutative theory is not renormalizable at one loop.

A modified N=1/2 SYM action achieves one-loop renormalizability.

Beta functions for the improved action are explicitly computed.

Abstract

We present a systematic investigation of one-loop renormalizability for nonanticommutative N=1/2, U(N) SYM theory in superspace. We first discuss classical gauge invariance of the pure gauge theory and show that in contradistinction to the ordinary anticommutative case, different representations of supercovariant derivatives and field strengths do not lead to equivalent descriptions of the theory. Subsequently we develop background field methods which allow us to compute a manifestly covariant gauge effective action. One-loop evaluation of divergent contributions reveals that the theory simply obtained from the ordinary one by trading products for star products is not renormalizable. In the case of SYM with no matter we present a N=1/2 improved action which we show to be one-loop renormalizable and which is perfectly compatible with the algebraic structure of the star product. For this action we compute the beta functions. A brief discussion on the inclusion of chiral matter is also presented.