Supermultiplet

A supermultiplet is an irreducible representation of the Super-Poincaré algebra. Conserved supercharges pair its bosonic and fermionic states at equal four-momentum.

A four-dimensional N=1 chiral multiplet consists off shell of a complex scalar $\varphi$, a Weyl fermion ${\psi }_{\alpha }$, and a complex auxiliary scalar $F$. A chiral superfield packages their supersymmetry transformations. Eliminating the auxiliary scalar leaves two bosonic and two fermionic physical polarizations; an allowed supersymmetric mass gives equal scalar and fermion masses.

A massive supermultiplet is a unitary irreducible representation of the Super-Poincaré algebra with positive timelike momentum. At rest, its nonzero supercharges become fermionic creation operators and fermionic annihilation operators. Without central charges in supersymmetry, four-dimensional extended supersymmetry has $2\mathcal{N}$ complex oscillators; a spin-$j$ Clifford vacuum gives $(2j+1)2^{2\mathcal{N}}$ states.

For a massive four-dimensional N=1 supermultiplet, superspin $j$ is the spin of its Clifford vacuum, the state annihilated by the two lowering supercharges. The creation operators produce spins $j,j,j+1/2,j-1/2$, omitting the last when $j=0$. The corresponding superspin Casimir has an eigenvalue proportional to $j(j+1)$; this representation label is distinct from the spin of any one constituent.

At rest the two complex supercharges have anticommutators $2m{\delta }_{ab}$. A normalized scalar Clifford vacuum generates four states at occupation levels $0,1,2$: two spin-zero bosonic states and one spin-half pair. Products of three creation charges vanish. The one-creation normalization is $(2m{)}^{-1/2}$ and the two-creation normalization is $(2m{)}^{-1}$. The resulting on-shell content is a complex scalar and a massive fermion with equal masses.

For $\mathcal{N}$ supersymmetries and $k$ saturated two-by-two central-charge blocks, $2k$ complex oscillators act trivially. A spin-$j$ Clifford vacuum therefore gives $(2j+1)2^{2\mathcal{N}-2k}$ states and preserves $4k$ of the $4\mathcal{N}$ real supercharges. With $\mathcal{N}=2$ and a scalar vacuum, the shortened multiplet has two boson states and two fermion states, before any CPT completion of a supermultiplet.

A supersymmetric vector multiplet contains a gauge boson and its gaugino partners, with additional scalar fields for extended supersymmetry. Its gauge group representation is the adjoint group representation.

A four-dimensional massive $\mathcal{N}=1$ vector multiplet contains one spin-one particle, two spin-one-half particles and one real spin-zero particle. Its on-shell state counts are $3+1=4$ bosonic and $2+2=4$ fermionic. These masses agree in an unbroken supersymmetric vacuum. The supersymmetric Higgs mechanism assembles it from a massless vector multiplet and one chiral superfield per broken gauge generator.

The massive N=1 vector multiplet contains spins $1,1/2,1/2,0$. Its massless helicity content splits into a CPT-complete vector multiplet with helicities $(1,1/2)$ and $(-1/2,-1)$, and a CPT-complete chiral multiplet with helicities $(1/2,0)$ and $(0,-1/2)$. The longitudinal vector polarization becomes one of the two scalar polarizations; the other comes from the original real scalar. This is the representation-theoretic inverse of the supersymmetric Higgs mechanism.

The CPT theorem reverses helicity and conjugates internal charges. If a supermultiplet is not mapped into itself, a physical spectrum must also include its conjugate supermultiplet; this can double the irreducible state count.

A massless supermultiplet is a positive-energy unitary irreducible representation of the Super-Poincaré algebra with null four-momentum. For finite helicity states in four dimensions, half the supercharges act trivially and the others form a fermionic Fock space.

For a four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ finite-helicity massless supermultiplet, one complex oscillator changes helicity by one-half. A lower-helicity labelling convention assigns $\kappa$ to the pair $(\kappa ,\kappa +1/2)$. A symmetric midpoint convention instead uses $\kappa +1/4$; report the helicity pair when comparing conventions. CPT completion of a supermultiplet pairs $\kappa$ with $-\kappa -1/2$.

For a four-dimensional massless supermultiplet with $\mathcal{N}$ independent supercharges and highest helicity $\lambda$, level $k$ has helicity $\lambda -k/2$ and multiplicity $\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{\mathcal{N}}{k}\right)$. The total is $2^{\mathcal{N}}$ states and the helicity range has width $\mathcal{N}/2$, before any necessary CPT completion of a supermultiplet.

In four-dimensional supersymmetry, a finite-helicity massless supermultiplet has helicity interval of width $\mathcal{N}/2$. If every state obeys $|h|\le s$, that interval fits inside one of width $2s$, giving $\mathcal{N}\le 4s$. The bounds $4$ for $s=1$ and $8$ for $s=2$ are attained by the four-dimensional N=4 super Yang-Mills theory vector multiplet and the four-dimensional N=8 supergravity supergravity multiplet. Spin bounds alone do not prove that an arbitrary action is renormalizable.

Every positive-energy supermultiplet contains equally many bosonic and fermionic states. A supertrace of a positive supercharge anticommutator proves the equality, provided supersymmetry is exact and the representation is finite-dimensional at fixed momentum.

For a finite physical supermultiplet at fixed positive energy, fermion parity anticommutes with each odd supercharge. Trace cyclicity makes $\mathrm{Tr}[(-1{)}^F\{Q,Q^{†}\}]=0$. Summing the Super-Poincaré algebra diagonal entries replaces the anticommutator by $4E$, giving equal bosonic and fermionic state counts. A zero-energy vacuum is an exception to the division by $E$, so it need not have a partner. The argument requires an invariant fixed-momentum representation, which is the step lost under explicit supersymmetry breaking.

An odd involution $A$ reverses fermion parity and is its own inverse, so it identifies the bosonic and fermionic subspaces. They have equal dimension in a finite-dimensional representation. For a supercharge $q$ with $q^2=0$ and $\{q,q^{†}\}=cI$, $c>0$, use $A=(q+q^{†})/\sqrt{c}$. This gives a direct proof of boson-fermion degeneracy in a supermultiplet at positive energy. A zero-energy supersymmetric vacuum need not have an accompanying fermionic vacuum.

In an unbroken supersymmetric vacuum, physical boson and fermion partners have equal masses because supercharges commute with four-momentum. For one canonical chiral superfield, fluctuations about $W^{\prime }(v)=0$ have mass $|W^{\prime \prime }(v)|$ for both the complex scalar field and Weyl spinor.

For one canonical chiral field at $W^{\prime }(v)=0$, the quadratic scalar potential is $|W^{\prime \prime }(v){|}^2|\delta \phi {|}^2$. Writing $\delta \phi =(a+ib)/\sqrt{2}$ gives two canonically normalized real scalars with squared mass $|W^{\prime \prime }(v){|}^2$. The chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix has the same physical mass. A complex bilinear coefficient or its algebraic square is not itself a signed physical squared mass.