Non-compact duality, super-Weyl invariance and effective actions

Abstract

Abstract In both $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 and $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 supersymmetry, it is known that Sp(2n, ℝ) is the maximal duality group of n vector multiplets coupled to chiral scalar multiplets τ(x, θ) that parametrise the Hermitian symmetric space Sp(2n, ℝ)/U(n). If the coupling to τ is introduced for n superconformal gauge multiplets in a supergravity background, the action is also invariant under super-Weyl transformations. Computing the path integral over the gauge prepotentials in curved superspace leads to an effective action Γ[τ,$$ \overline{\tau} $$ τ ¯ ] with the following properties: (i) its logarithmically divergent part is invariant under super-Weyl and rigid Sp(2n, ℝ) transformations; (ii) the super-Weyl transformations are anomalous upon renormalisation. In this paper we describe the $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 and $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 locally supersymmetric “induced actions” which determine the logarithmically divergent parts of the corresponding effective actions. In the $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 case, superfield heat kernel techniques are used to compute the induced action of a single vector multiplet (n = 1) coupled to a chiral dilaton-axion multiplet. We also describe the general structure of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 super-Weyl anomalies that contain weight-zero chiral scalar multiplets ΦI taking values in a Kähler manifold. Explicit anomaly calculations are carried out in the n = 1 case.