Super Self-Duality as Analyticity in Harmonic Superspace

A twistor correspondence for the self-duality equations for supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories is developed. Their solutions are shown to be encoded in analytic harmonic superfields satisfying appropriate generalised Cauchy-Riemann conditions. An action principle yielding these conditions is presented.Comment: 1 + 8 pages, plaintex, CERN-TH.6653/9

Unravelling the On-shell Constraints of Self-dual Supergravity Theories

We review a construction, using the harmonic space method, of solutions to the superfield equations of motion for N-extended self-dual supergravity theories. A superspace gauge condition suitable for the performance of a component analysis is discussed.Comment: 5 pages, latex using espcrc2.sty, talk at the 29th International Ahreshoop Symposium, Buckow, August 199

Conserved currents for unconventional supersymmetric couplings of self-dual gauge fields

Self-dual gauge potentials admit supersymmetric couplings to higher-spin fields satisfying interacting forms of the first order Dirac--Fierz equation. The interactions are governed by conserved currents determined by supersymmetry. These super-self-dual Yang-Mills systems provide on-shell supermultiplets of arbitrarily extended super-Poincar\'e algebras; classical consistency not setting any limit on the extension N. We explicitly display equations of motion up to the $N=6$ extension. The stress tensor, which vanishes for the $N\le 3$ self-duality equations, not only gets resurrected when $N=4$, but is then a member of a conserved multiplet of gauge-invariant tensors.Comment: 6 pages, latex fil

SELF-DUAL SUPERGRAVITIES

The N-extended supersymmetric self-dual Poincar\'e supergravity equations provide a natural local description of supermanifolds possessing hyperk\"ahler structure. These equations admit an economical formulation in chiral superspace. A reformulation in harmonic superspace encodes self-dual supervielbeins and superconnections in a graded skew-symmetric supermatrix superfield prepotential satisfying generalised Cauchy-Riemann conditions. A recipe is presented for extracting explicit self-dual supervielbeins and superconnections from such `analytic' prepotentials. We demonstrate the method by explicitly decoding a simple example of superfield prepotential, analogous to that corresponding to the Taub-NUT solution. The superspace we thus construct is an interesting $N=2$ supersymmetric deformation of flat space, having flat `body' and constant curvature `soul'.Comment: 14 pages, latex fil

The matreoshka of supersymmetric self-dual theories

Extended super self-dual systems have a structure reminiscent of a ``matreoshka''. For instance, solutions for N=0 are embedded in solutions for N=1, which are in turn embedded in solutions for N=2, and so on. Consequences of this phenomenon are explored. In particular, we present an explicit construction of local solutions of the higher-N super self-duality equations starting from any N=0 self-dual solution. Our construction uses N=0 solution data to produce N=1 solution data, which in turn yields N=2 solution data, and so on; each stage introducing a dependence of the solution on sufficiently many additional arbitrary functions to yield the most general supersymmetric solution having the initial N=0 solution as the helicity +1 component. The problem of finding the general local solution of the $N>0$ super self-duality equations therefore reduces to finding the general solution of the usual (N=0) self-duality equations. Another consequence of the matreoshka phenomenon is the vanishing of many conserved currents, including the supercurrents, for super self-dual systems.Comment: 19 pages, Bonn-HE-93-2