4D supersymmetric gauge theories of spacetime translations

Abstract

Abstract The paper addresses the question whether in four spacetime dimensions, besides standard supergravity theories, field theories exist whose symmetries include local spacetime translations and supersymmetries generated by transformations whose commutators contain infinitesimal local spacetime translations. Several new supersymmetric free field theories are found which may provide theories of that type. It is outlined how these free field theories may be extended to globally supersymmetric theories with the desired properties. One class of such theories is constructed explicitly. These theories are similar to globally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories in flat spacetime but have supersymmetries generated by transformations whose commutators generate infinitesimal general coordinate transformations with field dependent gauge parameters.