A manifestly N=2 supersymmetric Born-Infeld action

TL;DR

This paper constructs a manifestly N=2 supersymmetric Born-Infeld action in four dimensions, demonstrating its self-duality and relation to known N=1 actions, with applications to brane dynamics and supersymmetry breaking.

Contribution

It provides the first manifestly N=2 supersymmetric completion of the Born-Infeld action, linking it to partial supersymmetry breaking and D-brane descriptions.

Findings

The action is self-dual under electric-magnetic duality.

It relates to the known N=1 supersymmetric Born-Infeld action.

It can be interpreted as a Goldstone action for partial supersymmetry breaking.

Abstract

A manifestly N=2 supersymmetric completion of the four-dimensional Nambu-Goto-Born-Infeld action, which is self-dual with respect to electric-magnetic duality, is constructed in terms of the abelian N=2 superfield strength W in the conventional N=2 superspace. A relation to the known N=1 supersymmetric Born-Infeld action in N=1 superspace is established. The action found can be considered either as the Goldstone action associated with partial breaking of N=4 supersymmetry down to N=2, with the N=2 vector superfield being a Goldstone field, or, equivalently, as the gauge-fixed superfield action of a D-3-brane in flat six-dimensional ambient spacetime.