The conformal hyperplet

Abstract

We introduce a finite off-shell hypermultiplet with no off-shell central charge. This requires 192[Formula: see text]+[Formula: see text]192 degrees of freedom, all but 8[Formula: see text]+[Formula: see text]8 of which are auxiliary or gauge. In the absence of supergravity, the model has a saddle-point vacuum instability implying ghost-like propagators. These are cured by realizing the model superconformally, such that the erstwhile ghosts are realized as compensators. Gauge fixing these links the physical hypermultiplets to supergravity. This evokes the prospect of realizing [Formula: see text] super-Yang–Mills theory off-shell.