John Huerta

We have already met the octonionic Fierz identity satisfied by spinors in 10-dimensional spacetime. This identity makes super-Yang-Mills "super" and allows the Green-Schwarz string to be kappa symmetric. But it is also the defining equation of a "higher" algebraic structure: an L-infinity algebra extending the supersymmetry algebra. We introduce this L-infinity algebra in octonionic language, and describe its cousins in various dimensions. We then survey various consequences of its existence, such as the brane bouquet of Fiorenza-Sati-Schreiber.