Related papers: The discovery of supergravity and its early develo…
Following the initial construction of pure supergravity in 1976, various methods were developed to couple supergravity with supersymmetric matter. This contribution to 'Half a century of supergravity' provides a personal perspective on the…
An introduction to and a partial review of supergravity theories is given, insisting on concepts and on some important technical aspects. Topics covered include elements of global supersymmetry, a derivation of the simplest N=1 supergravity…
The theoretical developments that led to supersymmetry, first global and then local, over roughly six years (1970-1976) arose from a convergence of physical insights and mathematical methods stemming from diverse, and sometimes independent,…
This is the foreword to the book we edited on the origins and early development of supersymmetry, which has been just issued by World Scientific. This book presents a view on the discovery of supersymmetry and pioneering investigations…
A recollection of some theoretical developments that preceded and followed the first formulation of supergravity theory is presented. Special emphasis is placed on the impact of supergravity on the search for a unified theory of fundamental…
We give an elementary introduction to the structure of supergravity theories. This leads to a table with an overview of supergravity and supersymmetry theories in dimensions 4 to 11. The basic steps in constructing supergravity theories are…
I summarize, at its 41st--and what would have been Bruno's 94th--birthday, the history of the discoveries of Supergravity and some of its structure and later developments.
This contribution gives a panoramic overview of the development of N=8 supergravity and its relation to other maximally supersymmetric theories over the past 40 years. It also provides a personal perspective on the future role of this…
The invention of supersymmetry, almost exactly 25 years ago, changed the face of high-energy physics. The idea that the observed low-energy gauge groups appear due to the process of spontaneous breaking of a single unifying group $G$ is…
The development in the early eighties of supergravity grand unified models with gravity mediated breaking of supersymmetry, has led to a remarkable progress in the study of supersymmetry at colliders, in dark matter and in a variety of…
Supersymmetry has been studied for over three decades by physicists, its superset even longer by mathematicians, and superspace has proven to be very useful both conceptually and in facilitating computations. However, the (1) necessary…
An overview of matter-coupled ${\cal N}=2$ supergravity theories with 8 real supercharges, in 4,5 and 6 dimensions is given. The construction of the theories by superconformal methods is explained from basic principles. Special geometry is…
Supergravity is a remarkable theory combining supersymmetry and general relativity. While the theory has many developers from across the globe, we wish to address the question who were the real originators of this fantastic idea.
We present a short overview of the structure and couplings of supergravity theories at the component level. We do so with as little technical machinery as possible, working directly with the physical on-shell fields and using explicit…
Gravity is one of the most inexplicable forces of nature, controlling everything, from the expansion of the Universe to the ebb and flow of ocean tides. The search for the laws of motion and gravitation began more than two thousand years…
A survey is given of supersymmetry and supergravity and their phenomenology. Some of the topics discussed are the basic ideas of global supersymmetry, the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and its phenomenology, the basic ideas…
The fortieth anniversary of the original construction of Supergravity provides an opportunity to combine some reminiscences of its early days with an assessment of its impact on the quest for a quantum theory of gravity.
Gravity plays an important part in the experiments and discoveries of the modern world. But how was it discovered? Surely Newton and Einstein were not the only people to observe it and account for it. It had been a long path before the full…
A short introduction to N = 1 supergravity in four dimensions in the superspace approach is given emphasising on all steps to obtain the final Lagrangian. In particular starting from geometrical principles and the introduction of…
We discuss how developments in physics often imply in the need that spacetime acquires an increasingly richer and complex structure. General Relativity was the first theory to show us the way to connect space and time with the physical…