Paper detail

Simple d=4 supergravity with a boundary

To construct rigidly or locally supersymmetric bulk-plus-boundary actions, one needs an extension of the usual tensor calculus. Its key ingredients are the extended (F-, D-, etc.) density formulas and the rule for the decomposition of bulk multiplets into (co-dimension one) boundary multiplets. Working out these ingredients for d=4 N=1 Poincaré supergravity, we discover the special role played by R-symmetry (absent in the d=3 N=1 case we studied previously). The $U(1)_A$ R-symmetry has to be gauged which leads us to extend the old-minimal set of auxiliary fields S, P, A_μby a $U(1)_A$ compensator $a$. Our results include the ``F+A'' density formula, the ``Q+L+A'' formula for the induced supersymmetry transformations (closing into the standard d=3 N=1 algebra) and demonstration that the compensator $a$ is the first component of the extrinsic curvature multiplet. We rely on the superconformal approach which allows us to perform, in parallel, the same analysis for new-minimal supergravity.