English

Effective actions for dual massive (super) p-forms

High Energy Physics - Theory 2021-05-14 v3 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

In dd dimensions, the model for a massless pp-form in curved space is known to be a reducible gauge theory for p>1p>1, and therefore its covariant quantisation cannot be carried out using the standard Faddeev-Popov scheme. However, adding a mass term and also introducing a Stueckelberg reformulation of the resulting pp-form model, one ends up with an irreducible gauge theory which can be quantised \`a la Faddeev and Popov. We derive a compact expression for the massive pp-form effective action, Γp(m)\Gamma^{(m)}_p, in terms of the functional determinants of Hodge-de Rham operators. We then show that the effective actions Γp(m)\Gamma^{(m)}_p and Γdp1(m)\Gamma^{(m)}_{d-p-1} differ by a topological invariant. This is a generalisation of the known result in the massless case that the effective actions Γp\Gamma_p and Γdp2\Gamma_{d-p-2} coincide modulo a topological term. Finally, our analysis is extended to the case of massive super pp-forms coupled to background N=1{\cal N}=1 supergravity in four dimensions. Specifically, we study the quantum dynamics of the following massive super pp-forms: (i) vector multiplet; (ii) tensor multiplet; and (iii) three-form multiplet. It is demonstrated that the effective actions of the massive vector and tensor multiplets coincide. The effective action of the massive three-form is shown to be a sum of those corresponding to two massive scalar multiplets, modulo a topological term.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.08263,
  title  = {Effective actions for dual massive (super) p-forms},
  author = {Sergei M. Kuzenko and Kai Turner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.08263},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

36 pages; V2: typos corrected, comments and references added; V3: published version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T18:36:49.930Z