English

Pictures from Super Chern-Simons Theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2020-04-22 v1 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We study super-Chern-Simons theory on a generic supermanifold. After a self-contained review of integration on supermanifolds, the complexes of forms (superforms, pseudo-forms and integral forms) and the extended Cartan calculus are discussed. We then introduce Picture Changing Operators. We provide several examples of computation of PCO's acting on different type of forms. We illustrate also the action of the η\eta operator, crucial ingredient to define the interactions of super Chern-Simons theory. Then, we discuss the action for super Chern-Simons theory on any supermanifold, first in the factorized form (3-form ×\times PCO) and then, we consider the most general expression. The latter is written in term of psuedo-forms containing an infinite number of components. We show that the free equations of motion reduce to the usual Chern-Simons equations yielding the proof of the equivalence between the formulations at different pictures of the same theory. Finally, we discuss the interaction terms. They require a suitable definition in order to take into account the picture number. That implies the construction of a 2-product which is not associative that inherits an AA_\infty algebra structure. That shares several similarities with a recent construction of a super string field theory action by Erler, Konopka and Sachs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.07152,
  title  = {Pictures from Super Chern-Simons Theory},
  author = {C. A. Cremonini and P. A. Grassi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.07152},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

59 pages, Latex2e

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:22:28.399Z