Use mostly-plus Lorentzian signature and , with antisymmetrized gamma products of unit weight. A Majorana spinor obeys a reality condition under charge conjugation:
A Weyl spinor instead has definite chirality,
A four-dimensional Majorana spinor has four real components, while a Weyl spinor has two complex components. Charge conjugation reverses chirality in this signature, so a nonzero spinor cannot satisfy both conditions simultaneously.
For the Dirac equation , the derivative term reverses chirality because anticommutes with every gamma matrix, whereas the mass term preserves it. Projecting a purely chiral spinor equation onto its two chiralities therefore gives both and . Thus a nonzero four-component Weyl spinor satisfying this uncoupled Dirac equation must be massless. A Majorana spinor contains conjugate opposite-chirality components and can have a nonzero mass. Its charge-conjugation reality condition identifies particle and antiparticle operators, so a Majorana particle is its own antiparticle. A Weyl field does not by itself impose that identification.
This does not forbid writing a Majorana mass term for a neutral two-component Weyl field: such a term couples the field to its conjugate, and the resulting four-component massive field is Majorana, not a purely chiral solution of the uncoupled Dirac equation.
For the Rarita-Schwinger field, set and . The antisymmetric kinetic operator is invariant under
because commuting derivatives contract to zero against . Expanding its gamma product gives
Gamma contraction gives , so the equation implies and .
For a Fourier mode with momentum , if the latter identity gives . The mode is proportional to and hence pure gauge. Every physical nonzero-momentum mode therefore has . For a null mode, choose an index with . The same equation makes an element of the image of , allowing a gauge choice with . The field equations then reduce to
Residual gauge transformations obey .
Take a null momentum in the third spatial direction. Residual gauge freedom and transversality remove the temporal and longitudinal vector components, leaving two transverse vector polarizations. Their helicities are , while on-shell spinor helicities are . The gamma-trace constraint removes the two combinations of total helicity and retains the aligned combinations of helicity . Explicitly, in a chiral representation the transverse gamma contractions use , which annihilate the correspondingly aligned spin states and act nontrivially on the opposite states. Thus a Majorana Rarita-Schwinger field has two physical massless polarizations. The Majorana assumption is the one relevant to simple supergravity; a complex vector-spinor has these helicities for its particle and independent antiparticle modes.
A consistent free massive deformation is the algebraic term
added to a kinetic term . Its equation is
For , divergence and gamma contraction give, respectively,
These imply the massive Rarita-Schwinger constraints and , and the remaining equation is . Squaring gives in the chosen signature. The gauge symmetry is lost. In the rest frame, transversality sets the temporal component to zero; three spatial vector components times two on-shell spinor states give six states, and gamma trace removes the two spin-one-half states. The result is four massive spin- states, with spin projections . In supergravity the additional longitudinal states can be supplied by the super-Higgs mechanism.
A supercharge is an odd Weyl spinor generator. The mixed anticommutator has one undotted and one dotted index, hence transforms as a Lorentz four-vector. In the minimal Super-Poincaré algebra, its only spacetime generator is the four-momentum, so covariance fixes it to . Normalizing the charges canonically fixes :
The number two is a normalization, not something Lorentz covariance alone could fix under .
For an explicit closure calculation, use left Grassmann derivatives in superspace and the differential translation convention :
Each of the two derivative-coordinate cross terms contributes ; the other terms cancel by anticommutativity. This proves the displayed coefficient. The same calculation gives and . There is no scalar central charge for a single supersymmetry label: symmetry of the anticommutator is incompatible with a term proportional only to the antisymmetric .
In the massive rest frame , the mixed relation is . These positive canonical anticommutation relations supply the input for the normalization and finite fermionic Fock space in the question-level continuation.
The remaining non-derivative component term in the Lagrangian is the Yukawa interaction
Equivalently the interaction Hamiltonian has the opposite displayed sign. The first term is the two-component fermion mass, and the second its scalar-fermion interaction. A phase redefinition of makes the mass coefficient nonnegative, so the physical Weyl spinor mass is
It is again independent of , the choice of root and any sign of a real . This distinguishes the complex bilinear coefficient from the nonnegative physical mass. In the pure-linear supersymmetry-breaking branch , the fermion is the massless Goldstino.
Use signature , the numerical matrices and given in the question, and raise genuine tensor indices with . A real Minkowski spacetime vector corresponds to the Hermitian matrix
For SL(2,C) matrices, is Hermitian and has the same determinant. It therefore induces a real linear Lorentz transformation; composition of the congruence actions agrees with matrix multiplication. The kernel consists of : preservation of makes a kernel element unitary, and preservation of every Hermitian makes it scalar.
Polar decomposition of an invertible complex matrix connects every determinant-one complex matrix to its unitary factor, so the group is connected. The action gives the Lorentz spinor double cover of the proper orthochronous Lorentz group. It covers rotations via and boosts via the positive Hermitian matrices below. Every proper orthochronous transformation is a boost followed by a rotation, since one can first match its image of the future unit time vector and then use its rotation stabilizer. The congruence construction does not cover spatial parity or time reversal. In particular parity has determinant as a four-vector transformation; all transformations continuously produced from SL(2,C) have determinant .
Set , and . The Pauli matrix multiplication law gives . The proposed boost matrix is , with eigenvalues , determinant one and . Split . The perpendicular Pauli part anticommutes with , so multiplication gives
This is an active Lorentz boost. The image of a rest worldline has velocity , fixing the velocity sign convention.
For two nonzero boosts, write and . Their product is
The last term is anti-Hermitian. Thus is not Hermitian unless the axes are collinear; a pure boost has Hermitian lifts , so it cannot give the same Lorentz transformation. The noncollinear boost obstruction from Pauli products is therefore
That rotation is a Wigner rotation. A zero-rapidity factor is the trivial exception, regardless of the arbitrary axis assigned to it.
Define and . The printed Lorentz algebra brackets give
Set , . Then
This is the chiral decomposition of the complex Lorentz algebra. The two copies are the complexifications of the SU(2) algebras conventionally labelled left and right. They are not two independent compact real subalgebras of the real Lorentz algebra: are complex linear combinations of the real generators. The distinction is needed for noncompact boosts.
To verify the infinitesimal two-component action, put
Its trace vanishes by antisymmetry, so . The Pauli matrix multiplication law implies
Since , antisymmetrizing this identity yields
Consequently , exactly the claimed infinitesimal coordinate transformation with .
The two Weyl spinor representations transform as
Both maps preserve group multiplication. For , choose its spin lift and write the finite matrices as
For rotations these coincide as the SU(2) doublet; for boosts their generator signs are opposite. Any complex-linear intertwiner would commute with all rotations and hence be scalar by the Schur lemma, but a nonzero scalar cannot intertwine the opposite boost matrices. They are therefore inequivalent. Infinitesimally their matrices are and , while their matrices are both . Thus they have chiral labels and . The finite matrices are representations of the spin cover; choosing or matters for spinors even though their four-vector transformations coincide.
Using the supplied block gamma matrices, the generator of the Dirac spinor is
The antisymmetry of removes the symmetric Clifford part. Hence
There is a conjugation-order error in the last displayed gamma identity in the PDF. The Clifford algebra gives, with ,
Exponentiating this linear commutator action proves the inverse Lorentz action on gamma matrices
The second identity is the order required for the requested bilinears when . An explicit countercheck to the printed order is a positive boost along the third axis: gives
whereas the printed right side has a plus sign. This cannot be repaired by dropping index raising; the same raising convention is needed in the preceding coordinate transformation.
The adjoint relation supplied in the question gives , hence the Dirac spinor pseudo-unitarity identity . The Dirac adjoint therefore transforms as . It now follows that the Dirac scalar bilinear is
the vector is
and the antisymmetric second-rank tensor is
These are respectively a Lorentz scalar, Lorentz four-vector and Lorentz tensor. The source's inconsistent gamma identity is replaced by its correct inverse/order pair; all three transformation laws then follow with the stated spinor transformation.
The proper orthochronous Lorentz group is the connected Lorentz group in the question. Its double cover is , viewed as a real Lie group. Identify a spacetime vector with the Hermitian matrix
The action for preserves this determinant and hence the Minkowski metric. The group is connected, so its image is proper and orthochronous. Its kernel consists of : a matrix in the kernel first preserves , hence is unitary, and then commutes with every Hermitian matrix, so is scalar; determinant one forces the two signs. Matrices in generate spatial rotations, and positive Hermitian determinant-one matrices generate boosts. Rotations and boosts generate the connected Lorentz group, so the action is onto. Polar decomposition also gives as a manifold, proving that it is simply connected. This establishes the Lorentz spinor double cover.
In an anti-Hermitian rotation-generator convention, the Lorentz algebra brackets are
The negative sign in the last bracket distinguishes boosts from Euclidean four-dimensional rotations. After complexification, set
A direct bracket calculation gives , and . Thus the chiral decomposition of the complex Lorentz algebra is
Complexification matters: the real Lorentz algebra is not the compact real algebra .
Each spin- homogeneous polynomial representation of SU2 extends from to as . Its complex-conjugate extension uses . The finite-dimensional irreducible complex group representations of the covering group are therefore
The two separate complexified Lie-algebra factors act irreducibly on the two spin spaces, so their tensor product is irreducible. Conversely an invariant complex subspace for the real group is invariant under its complexified Lie algebra; the highest-weight classification for the two factors gives exactly these tensor products. This constructs all finite-dimensional complex Lorentz representations.
Again acts by . Therefore the irreducible representations of the connected Lorentz group itself, in this finite-dimensional complex category, are
If the sum is a half-integer, the group representation is a group representation of the spin cover, or a projective group representation of the Lorentz group, and is not an ordinary single-valued group representation of the group named in the question.
The scalar and four-vector descend. The left and right Weyl spinors, and , do not. Their direct sum is a Dirac spinor, reducible under the connected group; parity exchanges its two chiral summands. The group representations and describe the two complex chiral parts of an antisymmetric tensor. On the rotation subgroup, self-duality of irreducibles identifies the conjugate spin space with the usual spin space, so the Clebsch-Gordan decomposition for SU2 gives the same spin range as in part (i).
These are group representations used for fields, and they need not be unitary for a positive-definite inner product. Indeed no nontrivial finite-dimensional group representation of this group is unitary: if it were, its differential would embed the simple real Lorentz algebra into an algebra of skew-Hermitian matrices. The trace form would give an invariant positive-definite form on that algebra. Invariance and the boost brackets would then force , impossible for positive-definite . Equivalently nontrivial boosts in these polynomial group representations have real exponential rather than phase eigenvalues.
The qualification about dimension is necessary because a noncompact group also has infinite-dimensional unitary group representations. They too can be built using spin spaces, but not by a single finite pair. For example, the rotation content of induced Lorentz representations is obtained from normalized induced representations of the upper triangular subgroup of , with , and unitary characters on its diagonal , trivial on its unipotent part. In the compact picture this uses functions on satisfying
Expanding functions into matrix coefficients selects a single right-torus weight from each spin space, giving the rotation content
Normalized induction supplies the boost action, coupling these infinitely many rotation spaces. The central sign is , so the even- family descends to the connected Lorentz group and has integer rotation spins. This explains both the finite-dimensional field construction and why a classification of unitary group representations cannot simply be identified with the finite two-spin labels.
Chirality and the component expansion. A chiral superfield is constrained by
Use left Grassmann derivatives. The sign from differentiating an odd factor matters:
For a general superfield written in coordinates , the odd chain rule consequently turns the given superspace covariant derivative into
The chirality constraint removes the explicit dependence at fixed . There are only two components of , and their Grassmann algebra allows at most a quadratic monomial. Its finite chiral-superfield component expansion is therefore
Here is a complex scalar field, a Weyl spinor, and a complex auxiliary field; the last label avoids confusing it with the effective superpotential later. The factor is the standard canonical component normalization. In ordinary coordinates the same statement is
This translation exponential terminates because its shift is nilpotent; it displays the full component dependence without an unstated convention for the barred spinor square.
A superspace covariant derivative obeys the graded product rule. Since an ordinary scalar chiral superfield is even, . Linear combinations prove the polynomial claim. More generally, a nonsingular holomorphic function of chiral fields is chiral; inserting conjugate fields generally spoils this holomorphic closure of chiral superfields.
The superspace action. For a real Kähler potential and a holomorphic superpotential, the global chiral-field action has Lagrangian density
Full superspace integration gives a D-term, and chiral superspace integration an F-term. The action is real, and its supersymmetry variations are spacetime total derivatives. For one field, positive and algebraic elimination give . The Wess–Zumino model uses the canonical choice at tree level.
Scalar potential and the vertex. In canonical normalization, the auxiliary part of the Lagrangian density is
Substitution leaves . Differentiating the given quadratic-plus-cubic superpotential therefore gives the tree-level effective potential
This applies for complex . In terms of canonically normalized real fields , phases may be chosen to make real, in which case
The complex-field quartic interaction is . There are two identical external legs of each field type. Differentiating with respect to those four fields, or counting the Wick attachments to the vertex, produces the factor :
The local Feynman diagram for this quartic complex-scalar vertex in the Wess–Zumino model is
Figure 1.
Quartic complex-scalar Wess–Zumino vertex with two legs of each field type and its factorial-normalized Feynman rule
. Details.
If real-field Feynman rules are preferred, the and vertices are , while the vertex is . These are the same interaction in a different component basis. They should not be confused with a convention that absorbs into the coefficient of the complex quartic term.
Spurion symmetries. Treat as chiral spurions. An ordinary acts on with charges and leaves neutral. An R-symmetry gives charge one and charges . Thus
QuantityOrdinary Mass dimension
111
01
0
01
023
Each superpotential term has ordinary charge zero and R-charge two; the chiral integration measure has R-charge minus two. In particular is neutral under the specified R-symmetry. These are formal transformations of fields and parameters together, not two exact symmetries of a theory with arbitrary fixed nontransforming numerical couplings. This Wess–Zumino spurion charge assignment is useful because it constrains possible quantum terms.
The general holomorphic form. Let denote the local effective superpotential, reserving for the auxiliary component. The holomorphy argument for superpotential non-renormalization permits dependence on the chiral spurions, not on their conjugates. The dimensionless combination is neutral under both formal symmetries, whereas has the required dimension and charges. Hence, for , their most general allowed form is
with a holomorphic function before perturbative regularity and matching conditions are imposed. Equivalently, a monomial must obey
Solving gives , . Thus the terms in the holomorphic expansion have the form , which is precisely the expansion of the displayed function.
What is and is not renormalized. Apply the non-renormalization theorem to a local Wilsonian effective action retaining the elementary field and a nonzero infrared cutoff. Perturbative coefficients are regular as and : no massless infrared modes have been integrated all the way to zero momentum. Negative powers of are incompatible with the free weak-coupling limit, and powers would require negative powers of . Only the quadratic and cubic structures survive this regularity test. Their coefficients cannot acquire a loop correction here: a quadratic term with no is the free-theory mass term, while a cubic term only linear in is already the tree interaction. A loop renormalizing that cubic term requires additional interaction insertions. Such a dependence is excluded by the holomorphic charge constraints; dependence on cannot repair it in a superpotential. Matching to the specified tree action fixes
The limit is taken in the final polynomial, not by evaluating the intermediate ratio . The holomorphic Wilsonian superpotential and its parameters receive no independent perturbative vertex renormalization. Symmetries alone would only give the arbitrary function ; regularity and the free/tree matching are necessary to reach the stronger conclusion.
The Kähler potential is not protected by that theorem. In particular a corrected kinetic term leads to wave-function renormalization. Writing in canonical normalization gives
These holomorphic and canonically normalized superpotential couplings distinguish the two senses of “renormalized”: the physical/canonically normalized parameters can run, entirely through the common field normalization, even when the holomorphic coefficients do not. The scalar effective potential can consequently receive quantum corrections through the Kähler potential. Nor does the local perturbative statement automatically apply to infrared-singular one-particle-irreducible actions or to integrating out whole massive fields. Non-renormalization protects the local holomorphic F-term, not the complete quantum action or every physically normalized mass and coupling.
Use the hypercharge normalization . All matter chiral superfields are written with left-handed Weyl spinors, so the fields denoted by a superscript contain the charge conjugates of the usual right-handed Standard Model fermions. The MSSM superfield representations are
Each fermion generation contributes the first five chiral superfields. Their complex scalar field partners are squarks for the quarks and sleptons for the leptons. Each Higgs chiral doublet contains a Higgs complex scalar field and a higgsino. Every chiral superfield also has a complex auxiliary field. The vector superfields are
They contain the corresponding gauge bosons, gauginos in the Adjoint representation, and real auxiliary fields. A right-handed neutrino chiral superfield is not part of the minimal field content.
A gauge anomaly is a quantum obstruction to a classical gauge symmetry. For hypercharge, triangle diagrams with left-handed Weyl spinors can violate the Ward identity of the gauge boson; an uncancelled gauge anomaly makes the gauge theory inconsistent. Anomaly cancellation sums over every component, including colour and weak multiplicities. Complex scalar fields do not contribute to these chiral gauge anomalies. For one fermion generation, the cubic hypercharge coefficient is
The other coefficients involving a hypercharge gauge boson vanish too. With the fundamental index ,
The last line is the mixed gauge-gravitational anomaly. Coefficients with one non-Abelian generator and two hypercharge generators vanish by tracelessness. For completeness, the purely colour cubic gauge anomaly cancels between the two fundamental quark components and the two antifundamentals; the weak group has no perturbative cubic gauge anomaly. Its four left-handed doublets per fermion generation also avoid the Witten SU(2) anomaly. Thus each family is separately anomaly-free, not merely their sum.
The gauginos do not spoil this result: their hypercharge is zero and their Adjoint representation is real. One extra Higgs chiral doublet is different because its higgsino is chiral. For , its contributions are
They have no compensating contribution from the Higgs complex scalar field. The higgsino in supplies precisely the negative of each coefficient. Opposite-hypercharge Higgs chiral doublets restore anomaly cancellation. The same pair restores an even number of weak fermion doublets, so the Witten SU(2) anomaly provides an additional check of the higgsino anomaly cancellation.
The independent reason is the holomorphic need for two Higgs chiral doublets. A superpotential is a holomorphic function of chiral superfields, so it cannot use a conjugate Higgs superfield to generate the missing Yukawa couplings. The ordinary Standard Model can use a Higgs scalar and its conjugate, but the MSSM needs distinct chiral superfields of both hypercharges. For example,
where the dot contracts weak indices with the antisymmetric tensor. All three terms are gauge-invariant holomorphic functions. supplies up-type masses, while supplies down-type and charged-lepton masses. Replacing either by the conjugate of the other would violate the holomorphic closure of chiral superfields.
Use the minimal four-dimensional Super-Poincaré algebra, with , and commuting translations. Lorentz covariance and closure on the existing supercharges permit only
The graded Jacobi identity for therefore gives
For example, with , and , the coefficient is a nonzero multiple of . Independence of the translation generators forces . Its adjoint gives the barred result. Thus every supercharge commutes with four-momentum:
Consequently . If has a particular mass-shell condition, the nonzero state has the same one. This gives supersymmetric mass degeneracy within an unbroken physical supermultiplet. The qualification matters: after spontaneous supersymmetry breaking, the chosen vacuum is not annihilated by the supercharges, and its one-particle excitations need not constitute degenerate supermultiplets.
For the O'Raifeartaigh model, write , , . Field phases allow to be positive. The canonical Kähler potential and elimination of the auxiliary fields give the F-term scalar potential
A supersymmetric vacuum would require , hence , while could not vanish. Thus F-flatness is impossible. More precisely, with ,
The stated strict inequality makes every nonconstant term nonnegative. The entire classical vacuum family is
Here , while . The Weyl spinor is the massless goldstino, and the complex scalar field is a pseudomodulus with two zero tree-level squared masses. The hierarchy separates the massive fields from the breaking scale, but it does not itself select along this flat direction.
At the representative vacuum , the chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix is
Its physical masses are its singular values: . The two massive Weyl spinors can be combined into one massive Dirac spinor. For , , the real scalar squared masses are
In particular, there is no tachyon under the stated inequality. The splitting of the masses displays supersymmetry breaking directly.
For completeness, the mass spectrum can be given throughout the classical vacuum family, rather than silently fixing the pseudomodulus. A phase rotation makes real and nonnegative without changing physical masses. The massive fermion squared masses are
The real and imaginary scalar sectors have two-by-two scalar squared-mass matrices
whose eigenvalues are
Both determinants are and their traces are positive, so stability holds at every finite . Quantum corrections can lift a pseudomodulus; these formulas describe the classical, tree-level spectrum requested here.
Define the physical mass supertrace by
Each real scalar contributes once and each Weyl spinor twice with a minus sign. At this gives . At general , . Hence the tree-level mass supertrace vanishes despite broken supersymmetry:
This is the tree-level supertrace mass sum rule, not a claim that the individual masses are equal.
For direct breaking in the Minimal supersymmetric Standard Model, the difficulty is both field content and the tree-level spectrum. A linear gauge-invariant superpotential term needs a gauge-singlet chiral superfield, which the minimal model does not contain. Moreover, with canonical kinetic terms and purely neutral F-term breaking, without D-term mass shifts, the MSSM tree-level sfermion mass constraint applies separately to conserved charge sectors. For one electron pair it gives : both scalar partners cannot be heavy. This is an illustrative charge-sector consequence under those assumptions, not an unrestricted inference from the total supertrace alone. A separate hidden supersymmetry-breaking sector communicating effective soft supersymmetry breaking through loops or suppressed operators avoids the direct canonical tree-level obstruction.
With left Grassmann derivatives, differentiating with respect to introduces a minus sign. Consequently
At fixed , the chirality condition becomes independence of . There are only two independent Grassmann variables , so the chiral-superfield component expansion terminates:
Here is a complex scalar field, a Weyl spinor, and a complex auxiliary field. Its four real off-shell bosonic components, two in and two in , match the four real off-shell fermionic components. Equivalently, in ordinary coordinates the complete expansion is fixed without ambiguous contraction signs by
The exponential terminates because of the Grassmann algebra.
Complexifying the Clifford algebra removes the signature dependence of its representation dimension. Pair the gamma matrices into operators with and . The commuting occupation operators have eigenvalues zero or one. Starting from a Clifford vacuum, applying every subset of the fermionic creation operators produces independent states. Conversely, these operators construct matrices on a -dimensional space, and their products span its full matrix algebra. Thus an irreducible complex Clifford algebra module in has
A general Clifford module is a direct sum of these; the statement concerns the minimal spinor.
The Lorentz group acts through even Clifford products, . More precisely this is a representation of its double cover, the Spin group. The normalized product of all matrices squares to one and anticommutes with each , while commuting with every . Its eigenspaces are the two Weyl spinor representations, so the Dirac spinor is reducible under the connected spin group:
Each summand is irreducible. The Clifford module itself remains irreducible because an individual interchanges the summands. In one can use the old as the additional matrix, with an appropriate phase for its signature. No independent chirality matrix remains: the product of all matrices is central and fixed to a scalar on an irreducible module. There are two choices of this central sign for the complex Clifford algebra, but each restricts to the same irreducible -dimensional spinor representation of the connected spin group. An odd-dimensional spinor has no Weyl splitting. Majorana spinor reality conditions depend additionally on dimension and signature; they must be imposed separately from this complex dimension count.
For the massless field counts, use the rotational part of the little group and real physical polarizations. A massless p-form gauge field has only transverse, antisymmetric components after its gauge redundancy and equations of motion are imposed, giving polarizations. A graviton has a symmetric traceless transverse tensor, giving . A massless fermion obeys a Dirac equation which halves its off-shell spinor components. In ten dimensions a Majorana-Weyl spinor has sixteen real components off shell and eight physical components; in nine dimensions a Majorana spinor has sixteen off shell and eight physical components; in eleven dimensions a Majorana spinor has thirty-two off shell and sixteen physical components. A gravitino is a transverse vector-spinor with its gamma trace removed, leaving times the corresponding physical spinor dimension. Thus the ten-dimensional Majorana-Weyl gravitino has polarizations, the nine-dimensional Majorana gravitino has , and the eleven-dimensional Majorana gravitino has .
The common Neveu-Schwarz sector of type IIA supergravity and type IIB supergravity consists of a metric tensor, the Kalb–Ramond field , and the dilaton . Their counts are respectively , , and . The Ramond-Ramond sectors and fermions distinguish the theories. In type IIA supergravity the independent bosonic potentials and counts are
There are two Majorana-Weyl gravitini of opposite chirality, giving , and two Majorana-Weyl dilatini of opposite chirality, giving . Their total is . With gravitini labelled and , the corresponding dilatini have signs and respectively. Type IIA is nonchiral.
In type IIB supergravity, the independent bosonic potentials and counts are
The five-form field strength associated with is a self-dual differential form, so only half the seventy transverse four-form components are independent. In Lorentzian ten dimensions the Hodge star operator on five-forms squares to one, making a real self-duality condition possible. The two Majorana-Weyl gravitini have the same chirality and contribute states. Both Majorana-Weyl dilatini have the opposite chirality to those gravitini and contribute states. Type IIB is chiral, with bosonic and fermionic polarizations.
For dimensional reduction, retain the massless zero modes on a flat circle, with no flux, gauging or fermion twist. A metric splits into a lower-dimensional metric, one vector and one scalar. An ordinary -form splits into a -form and a -form, according as it has no compact index or one. This preserves counts by Pascal's identity, .
Reducing type IIA supergravity to nine dimensions gives the following decompositions; each number is a count of physical states:
Thus the bosonic maximal nine-dimensional supergravity multiplet contains one graviton, three massless vectors, two massless two-forms, one massless three-form and three real scalars, with
Each ten-dimensional Majorana-Weyl gravitino becomes one nine-dimensional Majorana gravitino and one Majorana spin-one-half field, giving . Each ten-dimensional dilatino gives one more Majorana spin-one-half field. The fermionic multiplet therefore has two gravitini and four spin-one-half fields, with . The fields belong to one maximal gravity supermultiplet, not separate interacting matter multiplets.
Reducing type IIB supergravity gives from the metric; one two-form and one vector each from and ; and the two scalars . The four-form potential yields a nine-dimensional four-form and three-form, but the ten-dimensional self-dual differential form condition relates their field strengths. Retaining either one gives independent polarizations, not seventy. The same bosonic count, three scalars, three vectors, two two-forms and one three-form, follows. The fermionic reduction likewise gives two gravitini and four spin-one-half fields. These are the same maximal nine-dimensional supergravity spectrum, as expected from T-duality. The spectrum is nonchiral in nine dimensions, since the odd-dimensional spinor representation has no independent Weyl chirality; the ten-dimensional distinction is lost on restriction to nine-dimensional Lorentz symmetry.
Eleven-dimensional supergravity has a metric with states, a three-form with , and a Majorana gravitino with . For direct reduction on a flat two-torus, write the internal indices as . The metric gives , two vectors and three symmetric components ; the three-form gives , two two-forms and one vector . Hence
The eleven-dimensional Majorana spinor restricts to two nine-dimensional Majorana spinors. The vector-spinor consequently yields two gravitini and four spin-one-half fields, giving . This is again the same maximal nine-dimensional multiplet.
For reduction of massless type IIA supergravity to four dimensions, use a flat six-torus and retain all zero modes, without flux or projections. Internal indices give
The multiplicities come respectively from a symmetric pair of six internal indices, , and . Before dualizing, this gives one graviton, vectors, scalars, seven two-forms and one three-form. The seven two-forms provide seven scalar polarizations, whereas the three-form has no local propagating polarization. Thus the final bosonic spectrum is one graviton, vectors and scalars, with states.
A ten-dimensional Majorana-Weyl spinor decomposes into four four-dimensional Majorana spinors. Each ten-dimensional gravitino supplies four four-dimensional gravitini and twenty-four spin-one-half fields, with . Each ten-dimensional dilatino supplies four spin-one-half fields, with . Together they give eight gravitini and fifty-six spin-one-half fields, with . As a separate check, the helicity spectrum of a massless supermultiplet with has multiplicities at helicity , giving . The reduced theory has the field content of four-dimensional N=8 supergravity, with physical states, exactly as in ten and eleven dimensions. Other compact manifolds or projections can reduce the number of preserved supercharges; the flat-torus assumption is essential to this spectrum.
Here is the local two-form scalar duality including its coupling dependence. For this calculation use signature , , and the contravariant volume tensor . A healthy two-form kinetic term and its first-order form are
Treat as independent. Varying imposes its Bianchi identity for an Abelian p-form, , so locally . Varying instead yields
Use . The original kinetic term becomes , and the multiplier term becomes . Both terms must be substituted; replacing only in the original kinetic term would produce the wrong sign. Thus
At fixed normalization of the Bianchi multiplier, the dual kinetic coefficient is the inverse of the original coefficient: if the scalar convention is , then . A canonical scalar is for constant , but that rescaling hides the formal coupling inversion and changes any assigned scalar periodicity. For a scalar-dependent positive kinetic matrix of several two-forms, the same calculation gives . Additional topological couplings modify the multiplier's derivative terms but do not change this basic inversion of the two-form kinetic matrix. The Hodge star operator exchanges the two-form Euler-Lagrange equations and Bianchi identities for an Abelian p-form with those of the dual scalars; the duality is local and global flux sectors require separate treatment.
A four-dimensional three-form instead has . Its equation of motion, , makes a spacetime constant. For constant coupling the first-order expression in this convention can be written
Here the first-order construction includes a multiplier : varying imposes , and the displayed density retains the term fixing the flux normalization. Eliminating gives and . Thus it can encode a constant-flux contribution to the vacuum energy, but no local massless particle or scalar wave. On the zero-flux perturbative vacuum it contributes no state. The seven two-forms are scalar duals; the three-form is nondynamical, which completes the four-dimensional field count without discarding a possible global flux parameter.
On shell, a massless vector multiplet contains a gauge boson with two transverse polarizations and a gaugino with two fermionic states. A chiral superfield contains a complex scalar field, hence two real bosonic states, and a Weyl spinor with two fermionic states. Their total is bosonic and fermionic states.
Suppose charged scalar fields acquire vacuum expectation values at a supersymmetric vacuum, where F-flatness and D-flatness hold. For each broken generator of the gauge symmetry, the supersymmetric Higgs mechanism combines one massless vector multiplet and one chiral superfield into a massive N=1 vector multiplet. The gauge boson absorbs one real Goldstone boson, acquiring its third polarization. The other real scalar field remains physical. The gaugino and the relevant higgsino mix into the four fermionic states. Thus the spin content is
Unbroken supersymmetry gives all these states the same mass through supersymmetric mass degeneracy. Remaining massive chiral superfields instead have spin content , with two fermionic and two bosonic states of a common mass. The auxiliary fields ensure matching off shell but are not additional propagating particles in these counts.
The super-Higgs mechanism occurs when local supersymmetry is spontaneously broken in supergravity. Its spin- gauge field, the gravitino, absorbs the spin- goldstino:
The extra states have helicities , supplementing . The ordinary supersymmetric Higgs mechanism can preserve supersymmetry while breaking the internal gauge symmetry; the super-Higgs mechanism breaks the local supersymmetry itself. Spontaneously broken global supersymmetry leaves a physical massless goldstino, because there is no dynamical gravitino to absorb it.
Choose a null four-momentum with and orient the third axis so that . The Super-Poincaré algebra gives
For every state in a unitary representation, the second anticommutator is the sum . Thus both operators act trivially. A central charge in supersymmetry also vanishes in this massless supermultiplet: its mixed-spinor anticommutator contains the now-trivial . The remaining pairs, normalized by , satisfy the canonical anticommutation relations
Label a Clifford vacuum by its highest helicity and choose the lowering convention . Acting with distinct fermionic creation operators produces the fermionic Fock space
This proves the helicity spectrum of a massless supermultiplet and the state count. If the internal charges or helicities do not already make the spectrum invariant under the CPT theorem, add its conjugate using the CPT completion of a supermultiplet.
The spin bound for massless supermultiplets follows directly from the width of this helicity interval. Requiring gives , achieved by the four-dimensional N=4 super Yang-Mills theory vector multiplet with multiplicities at helicities . These helicity bounds are necessary spin restrictions for the usual interacting renormalizable quantum field theory; they do not by themselves establish renormalizability for an arbitrary action. Requiring gives . The four-dimensional N=8 supergravity supergravity multiplet attains this bound with highest helicity and multiplicities . There is one state and one state, the two polarizations of a single graviton.
The stronger restriction relevant to matter is the chirality constraint on extended supersymmetry. An chiral superfield can contain a left-handed Weyl spinor in a complex gauge group representation . By contrast, a full hypermultiplet consists of matter in , and the gauginos of a vector multiplet are in the real adjoint group representation. Higher unbroken extended supersymmetry retains this pairing. A pseudoreal representation may allow a half-hypermultiplet, but it does not yield net chirality in a genuinely complex gauge group representation. Consequently the chiral gauge spectrum of the Standard Model permits at most unbroken supersymmetry in its four-dimensional low-energy matter sector.
All derivatives below are left Grassmann derivatives. Decompose the supersymmetric covariant derivatives into odd pieces
When these operators act on an arbitrary superfield, the graded Leibniz rule gives
The anticommutator of the two pure Grassmann derivatives vanishes. Also : the spacetime derivatives commute, while the and coefficients anticommute. Adding these terms proves the supercovariant derivative algebra with left derivatives,
For two unbarred derivatives, neither differentiates the coefficient of the other operator. Their coefficient products anticommute, so . The same argument with barred and unbarred coordinates exchanged gives . These signs follow the derivatives printed in this paper; a convention replacing by reverses the mixed sign as well.
Set . Left differentiation gives
The chain rule therefore makes simply at fixed . The chiral superfield constraint means that is independent of in these coordinates. Since there are only two independent entries of , its Grassmann algebra expansion terminates at degree two. Naming the coefficients gives the chiral-superfield component expansion
Here is a complex scalar field, a Weyl spinor, and a nonpropagating auxiliary field; the is their conventional normalization.
First assume global four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetry, canonical positive Kähler potential, and tree level. Write and at the stationary vacuum. The chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix is the symmetric matrix , and the sum of squared Weyl spinor masses is . From the F-term scalar potential , its mixed and holomorphic Hessian matrix blocks are
For canonically normalized real and imaginary parts of the scalar fields, the real scalar mass matrix has trace twice the mixed trace. Its holomorphic blocks can split the two real scalar masses but do not change their sum. Hence
A Weyl spinor has two spin states, so this proves the tree-level supertrace mass sum rule,
The paper defines its supertrace with , the negative of the conventional boson-minus-fermion supertrace used here. The asserted zero is the same in either convention. The result requires the stated canonical tree-level hypotheses; a noncanonical Kähler metric, supergravity, or radiative corrections can change the sum rule.
If vector multiplets are also present, the gauge contributions to the F-term supertrace cancel rather than being omitted. At , define for the scalar expectation vector . Differentiating adds to the real-scalar trace. The symmetric gaugino-matter mass matrix has off-diagonal entries , giving an extra in its fermion squared-mass trace. The covariant scalar kinetic term gives vector squared-mass trace . Thus their contribution is . The gauge-theory result uses all spin states, including the vector weight three; it is not obtained by dropping massive gauge partners.
The MSSM tree-level sfermion mass constraint explains the phenomenological difficulty with direct visible-sector breaking. If F-term breaking is neutral under an unbroken electric and color gauge symmetry, and no D-term shifts are present, the same trace argument applies within each conserved-charge fermion block. Its corresponding scalar partners cannot all have squared masses above the mean of the light fermion squared masses. Thus canonical tree-level visible-sector supersymmetry breaking alone cannot make every squark and other scalar partner heavy while leaving the observed fermions light. The usual effective soft supersymmetry breaking terms arise after communicating breaking from a separate sector; integrating out that sector, noncanonical interactions and radiative effects evade the hypotheses. The global trace identity alone would not identify a particular light squark without the conserved-charge block argument.
For the specified O'Raifeartaigh model, phases may be chosen so that are real and positive. Its superpotential derivatives are
and its F-term scalar potential is
For fixed , choose to minimize the final square. Since ,
Thus makes a global minimum with arbitrary . The hierarchy ensures this for fixed perturbative , rather than for arbitrarily large . The origin is one member of this classically flat family, with and . The complex field is a pseudomodulus.
At the origin the chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix, in the basis, is
Its physical fermion masses are ; the two massive Weyl spinors form one massive four-component fermion. The massless is the goldstino. More generally, stationarity gives , so the nonzero auxiliary field direction is a null vector of , proving the goldstino zero mode from vacuum stationarity.
Writing and similarly for , the quadratic scalar potential is
The mass spectrum of the quadratic-cubic O'Raifeartaigh model is therefore
The scalar squared-mass sum is , while twice the fermion squared-mass sum is also , so the supertrace is zero, as required. The two massless real modes are tree-level pseudomoduli, which can be lifted by a quantum effective potential; their tree-level masslessness is not the exact symmetry protection enjoyed by the goldstino.
Fix a positive-mass unitary irreducible representation at rest, with . Use the central charge in supersymmetry convention
The conjugate relation is , with the dotted epsilon tensor the conjugate of the undotted one. The supercharges commute with and the central charges. Their Lorentz transformation is that of a Weyl spinor; together with the ordinary Poincare algebra, these relations specify the Super-Poincaré algebra. Take and write . This makes the normalization of the mass bound explicit: a convention that writes instead has .
When , define four fermionic annihilation operators and their fermionic creation operators by
In the rest frame they obey the canonical anticommutation relations and . Choose a spin-zero Clifford vacuum annihilated by all four . Acting with each distinct creator at most once constructs the fermionic Fock space
The five levels have the binomial coefficient multiplicities , so the massive supermultiplet contains states. The four creators are two copies of the spin-one-half SU(2) representation. Their second exterior power is
Here the first factor carries physical spin and the second counts the two supersymmetries. Thus level two contains one spin-one triplet and three spin-zero singlets; levels one and three each contain two spin-one-half doublets. The final spin content is
Even levels give eight boson states and odd levels eight fermion states, exhibiting boson-fermion degeneracy in a supermultiplet.
For nonzero , pair the two supersymmetries before normalizing. Define
The rest-frame algebra gives and consequently
For , divide by to recover four normalized oscillators. Positivity of the Hilbert space norm proves the BPS bound in supersymmetry, since
Therefore
For a BPS state saturating this bound, both and their adjoints annihilate every state of the representation. Four of the eight real supercharges act trivially. Only the two oscillators remain, so a scalar Clifford vacuum gives a shortened massive supermultiplet with two spin-zero states and one spin-one-half doublet:
This is the irreducible count at fixed central charge. A CPT completion of a supermultiplet can require the charge-conjugate multiplet as well, doubling it to eight states; the full hypermultiplet count must not be confused with this four-state count. Saturation is a representation-theoretic relation between mass and conserved charge: shortening persists while the state remains BPS, although its existence can change across parameter space.
For even , unitary skew-diagonalization of an antisymmetric matrix brings the central-charge matrix to blocks , . Repeat the oscillator construction separately for each block. Every block supplies two oscillators with norm and two with norm , giving
If blocks saturate, complex oscillators disappear, leaving . Starting with spin , the irreducible state count and preserved fraction are
The largest massive shortening, , preserves one-half. The ordinary massive representation has . This rest-frame discussion excludes , where the massless supermultiplet construction uses a null momentum instead.