Supersymmetry and RCHO revisited

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:21020009,
            doi = {10.48660/21020009},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/21020009},
            author = {Townsend, Paul},
            keywords = {Mathematical physics, Particle Physics, Quantum Fields and Strings},
            language = {en},
            title = {Supersymmetry and RCHO revisited},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2021},
            month = {feb},
            note = {PIRSA:21020009 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }
          

Abstract

Various links between supersymmetry and the normed division algebras R,C,H,O were found in the 1980s. This talk will focus on the link between K=R,C,H,0 and supersymmetric field theories in a Minkowski spacetime of dimension D=3,4,6,10. The first half will survey the history starting with a 1944/5 paper of Dirac and heading towards the links found in 1986/7 between R,C,H,O and super-Yang-Mills theories. The second half will review a result from 1993 that connects, via a twistor-type transform, the superfield equations of super-Maxwell theory in D=3,4,6,10 to a K-chirality constraint on a K-valued worldline superfield of N=1,2,4,8 worldline supersymmetry. This provide an explicit connection of octonions to the free-field D=10 super-Maxwell theory.