Related papers: Counterterms/M-theory Corrections to D=11 Supergra…
We start by a concise yet thorough revision of four-dimensional superspace supergravity. We present curved superspace geometry, for arbitrary N, including torsion, curvature and Bianchi identities. We motivate the choice of torsion…
Maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories have several remarkable properties, among which are the cancellation of UV divergences, factorization of higher loop corrections and possible integrability. Much attention has been attracted to…
This thesis firstly investigates whether D=11 supergravity can be lifted to a higher dimensional theory without introducing additional bosonic fields by interpreting the E(7(7))-symmetry of N=8 d=4 supergravity as part of a coordinate…
The on-shell regularization of the one-loop divergences of supergravity theories is generalized to include a dilaton of the type occurring in effective field theories derived from superstring theory, and the superfield structure of the…
The most difficult counterterms to construct in any supersymmetric theory are those that cannot be written as full superspace integrals of gauge-invariant integrands. In $D=4$ maximal supergravity it has been known for some time that there…
The maximal supergravity theory in three dimensions, which has local SO(16) and rigid $E_8$ symmetries, is discussed in a superspace setting starting from an off-shell superconformal structure. The on-shell theory is obtained by imposing…
We compute certain spinorial cohomology groups controlling possible supersymmetric deformations of eleven-dimensional supergravity up to order $l^3$ in the Planck length. At ${\cal O}(l)$ and ${\cal O}(l^2)$ the spinorial cohomology groups…
At the macrosopic level we study candidate 3D effective field theories associated to M theory in three dimensions. These represent analogs of 11D supergravity for eleven dimensional M-theory. At the microscopic level we study various world…
We analyse the most general N=2 supersymmetric solutions of D=11 supergravity consisting of a warped product of four-dimensional anti-de-Sitter space with a seven-dimensional Riemannian manifold Y_7. We show that the necessary and…
We compute the one-loop divergences of D=10, N=1 supergravity and of its reduction to D=8. We study the tensor structure of the counterterms appearing in D=8 and D=10 and compare these to expressions previously found in the low energy…
We construct supergravity theories in twelve and thirteen dimensions with the respective signatures (10,2) and (11,2) with some technical details. Starting with N=1 supergravity in 10+2 dimensions coupled to Green-Schwarz superstring, we…
The conditions for fully supersymmetric backgrounds of general N=2 locally supersymmetric theories are derived based on the off-shell superconformal multiplet calculus. This enables the derivation of a non-renormalization theorem for a…
Motivated by the recent use of certain consistent truncations of M-theory to study condensed matter physics using holographic techniques, we study the SU(3)-invariant sector of four-dimensional, N=8 gauged supergravity and compute the…
The renormalization structure of two-dimensional quantum gravity is investigated, in a covariant gauge. One-loop divergences of the effective action are calculated. All the surface divergent terms are taken into account, thus completing…
We describe a new first-order formulation of D=11 supergravity which shows that that theory can be understood to arise from a certain topological field theory by the imposition of a set of local constraints on the fields, plus a lagrange…
Warped supergravities with lower-dimensional branes provide consistent field-theoretic framework for discussion of important aspects of modern string theory physics. In particular, it is possible to study reliably supersymmetry breakdown…
Synopsis: (i) how superstring theories are unified by M-theory; (ii) how superstring and supermembrane properties follow from the D=10 and D=11 supersymmetry algebras; (iii) how D=10 and D=11 supergravity theories determine the strong…
Starting from the eleven dimensional E_{11} non-linear realisation of M-theory we compute all possible forms, that is objects with totally antisymmetrised indices, that occur in four dimensions and above as well as all the 1-forms and…
Here we consider a gravitational action having local Poincare invariance which is given by the dimensional continuation of the Euler density in ten dimensions. It is shown that the local supersymmetric extension of this action requires the…
We discuss the lift of certain D6-antiD6-brane systems to M-theory. These are purely gravitational configurations with a bolt singularity. When reduced along a trivial circle, and for large bolt radius, the bolt is related to a…