Partial spontaneous breaking of two-dimensional supersymmetry

Abstract

We construct low-energy Goldstone superfield actions describing various patterns of the partial spontaneous breakdown of two-dimensional N=(1,1), N=(2,0) and N=(2,2) supersymmetries, with the main focus on the last case. These nonlinear actions admit a representation in the superspace of the unbroken supersymmetry as well as in a superspace of the full supersymmetry. The natural setup for implementing the partial breaking in a self-consistent way is provided by the appropriate central extensions of D=2 supersymmetries, with the central charges generating shift symmetries on the Goldstone superfields. The Goldstone superfield actions can be interpreted as manifestly world-sheet supersymmetric actions in the static gauge of some superstrings and D1-branes in D=3 and D=4 Minkowski spaces. As an essentially new example, we elaborate on the action representing the 1/4 partial breaking pattern N=(2,2) -> N=(1,0).

32 pages, version published in Nucl. Phys. B