Taxonomy of heterotic superconformal field theories

We derive the massless spectrum of all heterotic two-dimensional superconformal field theories constructed by tensoring models from the discrete series (c<3) using diagonal and exceptional affine invariants (but not including the quotients by discrete groups). A comparison is made between these models and known manifold constructions lending some support to the conjecture that some of these are sigma models with Calabi-Yau target spaces.     

Simple superconformal field theories in two dimensions

Superconformal field theories with first-order lagrangians, the super BC-systems, are considered on an arbitrary Riemann surface with an arbitrary gravitino field. The corresponding functional integrals are carefully defined, and the Weyl, supersymmetry, and holomorphic anomalies are computed. All the anomalies have a common coefficient. The holomorphic anomaly involves terms quadratic in the gravitino field.     

Types of two-dimensionalN = 4 superconformal field theories

Various types ofN = 4 superconformal symmetries in two dimensions are considered. It is proposed that apart from the well-known cases ofSU (2)and SU(2) × SU(2) ×U (1), their Kac-Moody symmetry can also be SU(2) × (U (1))⁴. Operator product expansions for the last case are derived. A complete free field realization for the same is obtained     

Symmetries and couplings in heterotic superconformal field theories

We discuss the symmetries of the superpotential in comfactified heterotic superstring theories formed from the product of minimal N = 2 superconformal field theories. It is shown how these symmetries can ensure flatness of the potential involving the moduli, and we derive new results (going beyond those obtained by superconformal techniques alone) for the flatness of the potential involving other massless fields.     

Modular invariance in N=2 superconformal field theories

The modular invariance properties of two-dimensional N=2 superconformal field theories are studied. It is shown that the character formulae of the central charge c<3 unitary highest weight representation for the untwisted algebras can be written in terms of the string functions and the theta functions of the affine su(2) Kac-Moody algebra. Deriving the modular transformation of the characters we construct the modular invariant partition functions on a torus. The character relation corresponding to the coset space construction of the unitary discrete series in the N=2 algebra is also obtained.     

On the Poisson-Lie T-duality in two-dimensional N=2 superconformal field theories

A supersymmetric generalization of the Poisson-Lie T-duality transformation is proposed. It is shown that N=2 superconformal two-dimensional WZNW models possess natural Poisson-Lie symmetry, which makes it possible to construct Poisson-Lie T-dual σ models. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 64, No. 12, 823–828 (25 December 1996)     

Study of N = 2 superconformal field theories in 4 dimensions

Making use of the exact solutions of the N = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories, we construct new classes of superconformal field theories (SCFTs) by fine-tuning the moduli parameters and bringing the theories to critical points. SCFTs we have constructed represent universality classes of the 4-dimensional N = 2 SCFTs.     

Anomaly matching conditions and the moduli space of supersymmetric gauge theories

The structure of the moduli space of N = 1 supersymmetric gauge theories is analyzed from an algebraic geometric viewpoint. The connection between the fundamental fields of the ultraviolet theory, and the gauge-invariant composite fields of the infrared theory is explained in detail. The results are then used to prove an anomaly matching theorem. The theorem is used to study anomaly matching for supersymmetric QCD, and can explain all the known anomaly matching results for this case.     

Modular invariant partition functions for N = 2 superconformal field theories

We find the characters of all the unitary degenerate highest weight representations of the N = 2 superconformal algebras with c<3. The constraints of modular invariance on the field contents of the two-dimensional N = 2 superconformal field theories are explored. The constraints take the form of sum rules on the number of superconformal highest weight representations. Models which satisfy these constraints are classified. We also discuss the condition of unbroken supersymmetry in these models.     

On Dynamics of 5D superconformal theories

5D superconformal theories involve vacuum valleys characterized in the simplest case by the vacuum expectation value of the real scalar field σ. If 〈σ〉 ≠ 0, conformal invariance is spontaneously broken and the theory is not renormalizable. In the conformally invariant sector 〈σ〉 = 0, the theory is intrinsically nonperturbative. We study classical and quantum dynamics of this theory in the limit when field dependence of the spatial coordinates is disregarded. The classical trajectories “fall” on the singularity at σ = 0. The quantum spectrum involves ghost states with negative energies unbounded from below, but such states fail to form complete 16-plets as is dictated by the presence of four complex supercharges and should be rejected for that reason. Physical excited states come in supermultiplets and have all positive energies.We conjecture that the spectrum of the complete field theory Hamiltonian also becomes positive definite (ghost-free) when invoking supersymmetry considerations.We speculate that the ghosts in higher derivative supersymmetric field theories are exterminated by a similar mechanism. The text was submitted by the author in English. On leave of absence from ITEP, Moscow, Russia     

Unitarity of rationalN = 2 superconformal theories

We demonstrate that all rational models of theN = 2 super Virasoro algebra are unitary. Our arguments are based on three different methods: we determine Zhu’s algebraA(H₀) (for which we give a physically motivated derivation) explicitly for certain theories, we analyse the modular properties of some of the vacuum characters, and we use the coset realisation of the algebra in terms ofsu(2) and two free fermions. Some of our arguments generalise to the Kazama-Suzuki models indicating that all rationalN = 2 supersymmetric models might be unitary.     

Conformal field theories in six-dimensional twistor space

This article gives a study of the higher-dimensional Penrose transform between conformally invariant massless fields on space–time and cohomology classes on twistor space, where twistor space is defined to be the space of projective pure spinors of the conformal group. We focus on the six-dimensional case in which twistor space is the 6-quadric Q$Q$ in CP⁷${\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}}^7$ with a view to applications to the self-dual (0,2)$(0,2)$-theory. We show how spinor-helicity momentum eigenstates have canonically defined distributional representatives on twistor space (a story that we extend to arbitrary dimension). These yield an elementary proof of the surjectivity of the Penrose transform. We give a direct construction of the twistor transform between the two different representations of massless fields on twistor space (H²$H^2$ and H³$H^3$) in which the H³$H^3$s arise as obstructions to extending the H²$H^2$s off Q$Q$ into CP⁷${\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}}^7$.     

On the classification ofN=2 superconformal coset theories

We show that two dimensionalN=2 superconformal field theories cannot be constructed by applying the supersymmetric extension of the GKO construction to the so-called special subalgebras, i.e. subalgebras for which at least one generator associated to a root of the subalgebra does not correspond to a root of the algebra itself. We thus prove the completeness of the classification ofN=2 supersymmetric coset models obtained by Kazama and Suzuki. Furthermore we point out that compared to their papers an additional criterion has to be added in theN=2 conditions.