Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,082 questions , 2,232 unanswered
5,353 answers , 22,789 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

  Can you have more than one $D$ term for each gauge group?

+ 2 like - 0 dislike
928 views

I'm reading this note in chapter 6 which discusses $ {\cal N} = 2 $ supermultiplets, though the discussion is quite general and applies to $ {\cal N} = 1 $ fields in the adjoint representation. I summarize the discussion given in the paper here with a slightly simplified situation and notation for clarity. Suppose we have some field, $ \Phi $, in the adjoint representation of a gauge group $SU(N)$. The Kahler term for the field is

\begin{equation}\int d ^2 \theta \Phi ^\dagger e ^{ 2 g V ^a T ^a} \Phi =g D ^a \phi ^\dagger T ^a \phi + ...\end{equation}

and the kinetic gauge term gives,

\begin{equation}W^\alpha _a W_\alpha^a=\frac{1}{2} D ^a D ^a+...\end{equation}

The paper then goes on to integrate out the $D^a$ fields which gives,

\begin{equation}D^a =\Phi ^\dagger T ^a \Phi\end{equation}

Then the authors go on to introduce more ${\cal N} =1$ field, $H$. The $H$ field Lagrangian takes the form,

\begin{align}{\cal L} &= \int d^4\theta H ^\dagger e^{2q V ^a t ^a} H+ \int d^2\theta W^\alpha _a W_\alpha^a + ...\\&= g D ^a \Phi ^\dagger T ^a \Phi + \frac{1}{2}D_aD_a...\end{align}

where $t_a$ are the generators in the representation of the $H$ fields. 

So far I have no issues, however then do something strange. They go on to again integrate out the $D$ fields, but they do so independently of the fields introduced earlier in the adjoint representation. However, don't we have a single $\vec{D}$ field for every gauge group, not every representation? So how come we are able to consider the sectors independently of one another?

asked May 22, 2014 in Theoretical Physics by JeffDror (650 points) [ revision history ]
edited May 27, 2014 by JeffDror

1 Answer

+ 3 like - 0 dislike

There is indeed one $D$ field for each gauge group, it is simply one field in the vector supermultiplet. I think that the way the paper presents things can be explained as follows. The Lagrangian for the $D$-field will always be of the form

$\frac{1}{2} D^{2} + (a+b+...)D$

where $a$,$b$,... are the contributions of the various charged fields and the equation of motion for $D$ is $D = -a-b-...$. In particular, each charged field gives a well-defined contribution to $D$ and the total $D$ is just  the sum of these contributions, there is no interaction between the various terms. When they consider one special field and integrate out $D$, I think they mean to compute the contribution of this field to the $D$-term.

answered May 28, 2014 by 40227 (5,140 points) [ revision history ]

Thanks for your response. That makes sense. Just to make sure I understand correctly. Is it then indeed true that we will also have cross terms of the form,

\begin{equation} (\phi ^\dagger T ^a \phi ) H ^\dagger t ^a H \end{equation}

arising from the $D^a D^a$ term?

Yes, I think so.

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysicsOverfl$\varnothing$w
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...