Effective gravity and OSp(N,4) invariant matter

We re-examine the OSp(N,4) invariant interacting model of massless chiral and gauge superfields, whose superconformal invariance was instrumental, both in proving the all-order no-renormalization of the mass and chiral self-interaction lagrangians, and in determining the linear superfield renormalization needed. We show that the renormalization of the gravitational action modifies only the cosmological term, without affecting higher-order tensors. This could explain why the effect of the cosmological constant is shadowed by the effects of newtonian gravity.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures, PACS: 04.65.+e, substantial revisions, to appear in Phys. Rev.

A modification of the 10d superparticle action inspired by the Gupta-Bleuler quantization scheme method

We reconsider the issue of the existence of a complex structure in the Gupta-Bleuler quantization scheme. We prove an existence theorem for the complex structure associated with the $d=10$ Casalbuoni-Brink-Schwarz superparticle, based on an explicitly constructed Lagrangian that allows a holomorphic-antiholomorphic splitting of the fermionic constraints consistent with the vanishing of all first class constraints on the physical states.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX, to appear in Phys. Lett.

N=4 supersymmetric mechanics with nonlinear chiral supermultiplet

We construct N=4 supersymmetric mechanics using the N=4 nonlinear chiral supermultiplet. The two bosonic degrees of freedom of this supermultiplet parameterize the sphere S(2) and go into the bosonic components of the standard chiral multiplet when the radius of the sphere goes to infinity. We construct the most general action and demonstrate that the nonlinearity of the supermultiplet results in the deformation of the connection, which couples the fermionic degrees of freedom with the background, and of the bosonic potential. Also a non-zero magnetic field could appear in the system.Comment: 5 page

A new N = 8 nonlinear supermultiplet

We construct a new off-shell $\mathcal{N}{=}8$, $d{=}1$ nonlinear supermultiplet $(\mathbf{4,8,4})$ proceeding from the nonlinear realization of the $\mathcal{N}{=}8$, $d{=}1$ superconformal group $OSp(4^{\star}|4)$ in its supercoset $\frac{OSp(4^{\star}|4)}{SU(2)_{\mathcal{R}}\otimes \left\{D,K\right\} \otimes SO(4)}$. The irreducibility constraints for the superfields automatically follow from appropriate covariant conditions on the $osp(4^{\star}|4)$-valued Cartan superforms. We present the most general sigma-model type action for $(\mathbf{4,8,4})$ supermultiplet. The relations between linear and nonlinear $(\mathbf{4,8,4})$ supermultiplets and linear $\mathcal{N}{=}8$ $(\mathbf{5,8,3})$ vector supermultiplet are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX file, PACS numbers: 11.30.Pb, 03.65.-

Fermionic currents in AdS spacetime with compact dimensions

We derive a closed expression for the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the fermionic current density in a (D+1)-dimensional locally AdS spacetime with an arbitrary number of toroidally compactified Poincare spatial dimensions and in the presence of a constant gauge field. The latter can be formally interpreted in terms of a magnetic flux treading the compact dimensions. In the compact subspace, the field operator obeys quasiperiodicity conditions with arbitrary phases. The VEV of the charge density is zero and the current density has nonzero components along the compact dimensions only. They are periodic functions of the magnetic flux with the period equal to the flux quantum and tend to zero on the AdS boundary. Near the horizon, the effect of the background gravitational field is small and the leading term in the corresponding asymptotic expansion coincides with the VEV for a massless field in the locally Minkowski bulk. Unlike the Minkowskian case, in the system consisting an equal number of fermionic and scalar degrees of freedom, with same masses, charges and phases in the periodicity conditions, the total current density does not vanish. In these systems, the leading divergences in the scalar and fermionic contributions on the horizon are canceled and, as a consequence of that, the charge flux, integrated over the coordinate perpendicular to the AdS boundary, becomes finite. We show that in odd spacetime dimensions the fermionic fields realizing two inequivalent representations of the Clifford algebra and having equal phases in the periodicity conditions give the same contribution to the VEV of the current density. Combining the contributions from these fields, the current density in odd-dimensional C-,P- and T -symmetric models are obtained. As an application, we consider the ground state current density in curved carbon nanotubes.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, PACS numbers: 04.62.+v, 03.70.+k, 98.80.-k, 61.46.F