THE METHOD OF COADJOINT ORBITS: AN ALGORITHM FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF INVARIANT ACTIONS

Abstract

The method of coadjoint orbits produces for any infinite dimensional Lie (super) algebra A with nontrivial central charge an action for scalar (super) fields which has at least the symmetry A. In this article, we try to make this method accessible to a larger audience by analyzing several examples in more detail than in the literature. After working through the Kac-Moody and Virasoro cases, we apply the method to the super Virasoro algebra and reobtain the supersymmetric extension of Polyakov's local nonpolynomial action for two-dimensional quantum gravity. As in the Virasoro case this action corresponds to the coadjoint orbit of a pure central extension. We further consider the actions corresponding to the other orbits of the super Virasoro algebra. As a new result we construct the actions for the N = 2 super Virasoro algebra.