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# Quantum Liouville theory versus quantized Teichmüller spaces

## 1 Introduction

Quantum Liouville theory is a crucial ingredient for a variety of models for low dimensional quantum gravity and noncritical string theories. In the case of two dimensional quantum gravity or noncritical string theories this comes about due to the Weyl-anomaly , which forces one to take into account the quantum dynamics of the conformal factor of the two-dimensional metric. More recently it was proposed that Liouville theory also plays a crucial role for three-dimensional quantum gravity in the presence of a cosmological constant in the sense of representing a holographic dual for this theory, see e.g. .

For all these applications it is crucial that the quantum Liouville theory has a geometric interpretation as describing the quantization of spaces of two-dimensional metrics. Such an interpretation is to be expected due to the close connections between classical Liouville theory and the theory of Riemann surfaces. Having fixed a complex structure on the Riemann surface one may represent the unique metric of negative constant curvature locally in the form $`ds^2=e^{2\phi }dzd\overline{z}`$ where $`\phi `$ must solve the Liouville equation $`\overline{}\phi =\frac{1}{4}e^{2\phi }`$. The relation between the Liouville equation and the uniformization problem leads to beautiful connections between classical Liouville theory and the theory of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces .

There has been considerable recent progress on the Liouville quantum field theory as a conformal field theory in its own right, see  and references therein. What was missing so far is the interpretation of these results as a description of the quantum geometry of Riemann surfaces. The results that we want to present here may be seen as representing the “chiral half” of such an interpretation. More precisely, we would like to announce the proof of a conjecture of H. Verlinde , according to which the space of conformal blocks of the Liouville theory with its mapping class group representation is isomorphic to the space of states obtained by quantizing the Teichmüller spaces of Riemann surfaces .

## 2 Teichmüller spaces

The Teichmüller spaces are the spaces of deformations of the complex structures on Riemann surfaces. As there is a unique metric of constant curvature -1 associated to each complex structure one may identify the Teichmüller spaces with the spaces of deformations of the metrics with constant curvature -1. Coordinates for the Teichmüller spaces can therefore be obtained by considering the geodesics defined by the constant curvature metrics.

A particularly useful set of coordinates was introduced by R. Penner in . They can be defined for Riemann surfaces that have at least one puncture. One may assume having triangulated the surface by geodesics that start and end at the punctures. As an example we have drawn in Figure 1 a triangulation of the once-punctured torus.

The length of these geodesics will be infinite. In order to regularize this divergence one may introduce one horocycle around each puncture and measure only the length of the segment of a geodesic that lies between the horocycles. Assigning to an edge $`e`$ its regularized length $`l_e`$ gives coordinates for the so-called decorated Teichmüller spaces. These are fibre spaces over the Teichmüller spaces which have fibres that parametrize the choices of the “cut-offs” as introduced by the horocycles.

A closely related set of coordinates for the Teichmüller spaces themselves was introduced by Fock in . The coordinate $`z_e`$ associated to an edge $`e`$ of a triangulation can be expressed in terms of the Penner-coordinates via $`z_e=l_a+l_cl_bl_d`$, where $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$ and $`d`$ label the other edges of the triangles that have $`e`$ in its boundary as indicated in the left hand side of Figure 2. Instead of triangulations of the Riemann surfaces it is often convenient to consider the corresponding fat graphs, which are defined by putting a trivalent vertex into each triangle and by connecting these vertices such that the edges of the triangulation are in one-to-one correspondence to the edges of the fat-graph.

The Teichmüller spaces carry a natural symplectic form, called Weil-Petersson symplectic form. We are therefore dealing with a family of phase-spaces, one for each topological type of the Riemann surfaces. One of the crucial virtues of the Penner/Fock-coordinates is the fact that the Weil-Petersson symplectic form has a particularly simple expression in these coordinates. The corresponding Poisson-brackets are in fact constant for Fock’s variables $`z_e`$,

$$\{z_e,z_e^{}\}=n_{e,e^{}},\mathrm{where}n_{e,e^{}}\{0,1,2\}.$$
(1)
Changing the triangulation amounts to a change of coordinates for the (decorated) Teichmüller spaces. Any two triangulations can be related to each other by a sequence of elementary moves:

The change of variables corresponding to the elementary move of Figure 2 is easy to describe:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill z_a^{}=& z_a\varphi (z_e),\hfill \\ \hfill z_d^{}=& z_d+\varphi (+z_e),\hfill \end{array}z_e^{}=z_e,\begin{array}{cc}\hfill z_b^{}=& z_b+\varphi (+z_e),\hfill \\ \hfill z_c^{}=& z_c\varphi (z_e),\hfill \end{array}\mathrm{where}\varphi (x)=\mathrm{ln}(e^x+1),$$
(2)
and all other variables are left unchanged. These transformations generate a groupoid, the Ptolemy groupoid , that may be abstractly characterized by generators and relations: One has a generator $`\omega _{ij}`$ whenever the triangles labelled by $`i`$ and $`j`$ have an edge in common.

The mapping class group $`\mathrm{MC}_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ consists of diffeomorphisms of the Riemann surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ which are not isotopic to the identity. Elements $`\mathrm{MC}_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ will map any graph drawn on the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, in particular any triangulation of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, into another one. Since any two triangulations can be connected by a sequence of elementary moves one may represent any element $`\mathrm{MC}_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ by the corresponding sequence of flips. It is extremely useful to think of the algebraically complicated mapping class group $`\mathrm{MC}_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ as being embedded into the Ptolemy groupoid.

Regarding the Teichmüller spaces as a collection of phase-spaces naturally leads one to look for suitable Hamiltonians. A natural choice is associated to pants decompositions of the Riemann surfaces. In the case of a Riemann surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s`$ of genus $`g`$ with $`s`$ boundary components this will be a collection of $`3g3+s`$ closed geodesics $`c_i`$ on the surface such that cutting $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s`$ along $`c_i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},3g3+s`$ decomposes it into a collection of three-holed spheres. The collection of lengths $`l_i`$ of the geodesics $`c_i`$ furnishes a set of functions on the Teichmüller space $`T(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$ that Poisson-commute with each other, $`\{l_i,l_j\}=0`$ . It is possible, but nontrivial to represent the lengths $`l_i`$ as polynomials in the variables $`e^{\pm z_e/2}`$ . It seems natural to take $`\{l_1,\mathrm{},l_{3g3+s}\}`$ as the set of Hamiltonians to turn $`T(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$ into an integrable system.

Having chosen the $`\{l_1,\mathrm{},l_{3g3+s}\}`$ as the set of “action”-variables, it is amusing to note that the corresponding “angle”-variables are nothing but the twist-angles corresponding to the deformation of cutting $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s`$ along $`c_i`$ and twisting by some angle $`\phi _i`$ before gluing back along $`c_i`$ . The set $`\{l_1,\mathrm{},l_{3g3+s};\phi _1,\mathrm{}\phi _{3g3+s},\}`$ gives another set of coordinates on the Teichmüller space $`T(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$, the classical Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates. These coordinates are associated to trivalent graphs on Riemann surfaces which are such that the edges that do not end in some boundary component of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s`$ are cut by exactly one of the geodesics $`c_i`$. The same type of graphs is used in the Moore-Seiberg formalism for conformal field theories  to label spaces of conformal blocks. We will therefore call them Moore-Seiberg graphs. Again it is natural to consider the groupoid of coordinate changes generated by the transition from one Moore-Seiberg graph to another. A set of generators is pictorially represented in Figure 3.

This set of elementary moves generates a groupoid that will be called the Moore-Seiberg-groupoid. The set of relations for the Moore-Seiberg-groupoid is more complicated than the one for the Ptolemy-groupoid .

## 3 Quantization of Teichmüller spaces

### 3.1 Algebra of observables and Hilbert space

The simplicity of the Poisson brackets (1) makes part of the quantization quite simple. To each edge of a triangulation of a Riemann surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s`$ associate a quantum operator $`𝗓_e`$. The algebra of observables $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$ will be the algebra with generators $`𝗓_e`$, relations

$$[𝗓_e,𝗓_e^{}]=2\pi ib^2\{z_e,z_e^{}\},$$
(3)
and hermiticity assignment $`𝗓_e^{}=𝗓_e`$. The algebra $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$ has a center with generators $`𝖼_k`$, $`k=1,\mathrm{},s`$ defined by $`𝖼_k=_{eE_k}𝗓_e`$ where $`E_k`$ is the set of edges in the triangulation that emanates from the $`k^{\mathrm{th}}`$ boundary component. Geometrically one may interpret $`l_k`$ as the geodesic length of the $`k^{\mathrm{th}}`$ boundary component 111This is not completely obvious, though: The Penner coordinates are defined only for punctures, corresponding to $`l_k0`$. However, Fock’s construction  of the variables $`z_e`$ also works for surfaces with geodesic boundary, in which case the $`l_k`$ indeed measure the lengths of its components.. The representations of $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$ that we are going to consider will therefore be such that the generators $`𝖼_k`$ are represented as the operators of multiplication by real positive numbers $`l_k`$. The tuple $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=(l_1,\mathrm{},l_s)`$ of lengths of the boundary components will figure as a label of the representation $`\pi (\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ of the algebra $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$.

To complete the definition of the representation $`\pi (\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ by operators on a Hilbert space $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$ one just needs to find linear combinations $`𝗊_1,\mathrm{},𝗊_{3g3+s}`$ and $`𝗉_1,\mathrm{},𝗉_{3g3+s}`$ of the $`𝗓_e`$ that satisfy $`[𝗊_i,𝗉_j]=2\pi ib^2\delta _{ij}`$. The representation of $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ on $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s):=L^2(R^{3g3+s})`$ is then defined by choosing the usual Schrödinger representation for the $`𝗊_i`$, $`𝗉_i`$.

Let us discuss the example of a sphere with four holes. We shall consider the fat graph drawn in Figure 4 above. The algebra $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^4)`$ has six generators $`𝗓_i`$ $`i=1,\mathrm{}6`$ with nontrivial relations $`[𝗓_i,𝗓_j]=2\pi ib^2`$ for

$`(i,j)\{`$ $`(1,2),(1,6),(2,3),(2,5),(3,4),(3,5)`$ (4)
$`(4,1),(4,6),(5,2),(5,1),(6,3),(6,4)\}.`$
The four central elements corresponding to the holes in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,4}`$ are

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝖼_1=& 𝗓_4+𝗓_6,\hfill \\ \hfill 𝖼_3=& 𝗓_2+𝗓_5,\hfill \end{array}\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝖼_2=& 𝗓_1+𝗓_3+𝗓_5+𝗓_6,\hfill \\ \hfill 𝖼_4=& 𝗓_1+𝗓_2+𝗓_3+𝗓_4.\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
After fixing the lengths of the four holes one is left with two variables, say $`𝗊𝗓_3`$ and $`𝗉𝗓_5`$. Choosing the Schrödinger representation for $`𝗊`$, $`𝗉`$ one simply finds $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^4)L^2()`$.

### 3.2 Representation of the Ptolemy groupoid

The first task is to find the quantum counterpart of the change of variables corresponding to the elements of the Ptolemy groupoid. A handy formulation of the solution  can be given in terms of the Fock-variables: The change of variables corresponding to the elementary move depicted in Figure 2 is given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝗓_a^{}=& 𝗓_a\varphi _b(𝗓_e),\hfill \\ \hfill 𝗓_d^{}=& 𝗓_d+\varphi _b(+𝗓_e),\hfill \end{array}𝗓_e^{}=𝗓_e,\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝗓_b^{}=& 𝗓_b+\varphi _b(+𝗓_e),\hfill \\ \hfill 𝗓_c^{}=& 𝗓_c\varphi _b(𝗓_e),\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
where the special function $`\varphi _b(x)`$ is defined as

$$\varphi _b(z)=\frac{\pi b^2}{2}\underset{i0\mathrm{}}{\overset{i0+\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑w\frac{e^{izw}}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi w)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi b^2w)}.$$
(7)
$`\varphi _b(x)`$ represents the quantum deformation of the classical expression given in (2). The formulae (6) define a representation of the Ptolemy groupoid by automorphisms of $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$, see .

Let us recall that the mapping class group $`\mathrm{MC}_g^s`$ can be embedded into the Ptolemy groupoid. Having realized the latter therefore gives a representation of $`\mathrm{MC}_g^s`$ by automorphisms of $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$. However, it turns out that one has to deal with subtleties related to projective phases if one wants to find a consistent representation of the mapping class by operators on $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$. An elegant solution to this problem was given by Kashaev in . It uses an enlarged set of variables, where pairs of variables are associated to the $`2M=4g4+2s`$ triangles of a triangulation instead of its edges. The reduction to $`(𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s),(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s))`$ can be described with the help of a simple set of constraints . Kashaev’s formalism is particularly useful to control the projective phases in the relations of the mapping class group . It turns out that the mapping class group is realized only projectively .

### 3.3 The length operators

Our aim is to make contact with the Liouville conformal field theory. In the Moore-Seiberg formalism for conformal field theories one considers bases for the space of conformal blocks that are associated to pants decompositions of Riemann surfaces. Our task may be seen as a quantum counterpart of the task to construct the change of variables from the Penner- to the Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates.

The first problem to address is of course the construction of quantum counterparts for the geodesic length functions on Teichmüller space. For a subset of the closed geodesics $`\gamma `$ on a Riemann surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ one may find a fat graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ that in an annular neighborhood $`N`$ of $`\gamma `$ looks as drawn in Figure 5.

The subset of closed geodesics for which this is possible includes all closed geodesics in a Riemann surface of genus zero and all non-separating cycles . In this case one finds according to  an expression for the hyperbolic cosine of the geodesic length function that is easy to quantize,

$$𝖫_\gamma =\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}\mathrm{cosh}2\pi b𝗉+e^{2\pi b𝗑},\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 2\pi b𝗑=& \frac{1}{2}(𝗓_a𝗓_b),\hfill \\ \hfill 2\pi b𝗉=& \frac{1}{2}(𝗓_a+𝗓_b).\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
This finite difference operator can be shown to be self-adjoint and to have a nondegenerate spectrum given by the interval $`(2,\mathrm{})`$ . It follows that there exists a self-adjoint operator $`𝗅_\gamma `$ with spectrum $`_+`$ such that $`𝖫_\gamma =2\mathrm{cosh}\frac{1}{2}𝗅_\gamma `$. $`𝗅_\gamma `$ is the quantum operator corresponding to the hyperbolic length around the geodesic $`\gamma `$.

The representation of $`𝖫_\gamma `$ in terms of the Fock variables associated to another fat graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ can become complicated. It has to be found by applying the automorphism of $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma }_g^s)`$ that corresponds to the element of the Ptolemy groupoid which relates $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$. As an example let us quote the expressions for the operators $`𝖫_s`$ and $`𝖫_t`$ representing the lengths of the geodesics isotopic to the s- and t-cycles drawn in Figure 4 respectively.

$`𝖫_s=`$ $`2\mathrm{cosh}\left(𝗉+\frac{1}{2}(𝖼_4𝖼_3)\right)`$ (9)
$`+e^{\frac{1}{2}𝗊}\left[2\mathrm{cosh}\frac{1}{2}\left(𝗉+\frac{1}{2}(𝖼_1+𝖼_4𝖼_2𝖼_3)\right)2\mathrm{cosh}\frac{1}{2}𝗉\right]e^{\frac{1}{2}𝗊}`$
$`𝖫_t=`$ $`2\mathrm{cosh}\left(𝗉\frac{1}{2}(𝖼_3𝖼_2)\right)`$
$`+e^{+\frac{1}{2}𝗊}\left[2\mathrm{cosh}\frac{1}{2}\left(𝗉\frac{1}{2}(𝖼_1+𝖼_2+𝖼_3𝖼_4)\right)2\mathrm{cosh}\frac{1}{2}(𝗉𝖼_3)\right]e^{+\frac{1}{2}𝗊}.`$
Complete sets of eigenfunctions for the operators $`𝖫_s`$ and $`𝖫_t`$ were found in . They will be denoted by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_l^s\left[\begin{array}{cc}l_3& l_2\\ l_4& l_3\end{array}\right](q)\text{and}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^t\left[\begin{array}{cc}l_3& l_2\\ l_4& l_3\end{array}\right](q)\text{respectively}.$$
(10)
It will be shown  that the definition of the length operators $`𝗅_\gamma `$ can be extended to arbitrary closed geodesics $`\gamma `$ such that

* $`𝗅_\gamma `$ is self-adjoint with spectrum $`_+`$,
* $`[𝗅_\gamma ,𝗅_\gamma ^{}]=0`$ if $`\gamma \gamma ^{}=\mathrm{}`$.

Moreover, diagonalization of the length operator $`𝗅_\gamma `$ for a closed geodesic $`\gamma \mathrm{\Sigma }`$ leads to a factorization of $`\pi (\mathrm{\Sigma },\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ in the following sense. Let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\gamma ^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }\gamma `$ be the possibly disconnected Riemann surface obtained by cutting along $`\gamma `$. The coloring $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of the boundary components of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ can be naturally extended to a coloring $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\gamma ,l}^{}`$ for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\gamma ^{}`$ by assigning the number $`l^+`$ to the two new boundary components that were created by cutting along $`\gamma `$. The spectral representation for $`𝗅_\gamma `$ then yields the following representation for $`\pi (\mathrm{\Sigma },\mathrm{\Lambda })`$.

$$\pi (\mathrm{\Sigma },\mathrm{\Lambda })_^+^{}𝑑l\pi (\mathrm{\Sigma }_\gamma ^{},\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\gamma ,l}^{}).$$
(11)
The corresponding representations of the mapping class group factorize/restrict accordingly . This allows one to construct bases (in the sense of generalized functions) for $`(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ labelled by the assignments of lengths to the closed geodesics $`c_1,\mathrm{},c_{3g3+s}`$ that define a pants decomposition.

### 3.4 Realization of the Moore-Seiberg groupoid

Thanks to the factorization properties of the quantized Teichmüller spaces one may indeed construct a realization of the Moore-Seiberg groupoid by associating unitary operators to the elementary moves depicted in Figure 3 .

In the case of the A-move, the unitary operator will simply be the one that describes the change of basis between the eigenfunctions of the length operators for s- and t-cycles of the four-holed sphere (see Figure 4) respectively. The unitary operator representing the A-move has matrix elements $`F_{ll^{}}`$ given by the overlap of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_l^s`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{}^t`$,

$$F_{ll^{}}^\mathrm{T}\left[\begin{array}{cc}l_3& l_2\\ l_4& l_3\end{array}\right]=\underset{}{}𝑑q\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_l^t\left[\begin{array}{cc}l_3& l_2\\ l_4& l_3\end{array}\right](q)}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^s\left[\begin{array}{cc}l_3& l_2\\ l_4& l_3\end{array}\right](q).$$
(12)
The matrix elements $`F_{ll^{}}`$ essentially coincide with the b-Racah-Wigner coefficients for the quantum group $`𝒰_q(𝔰𝔩(2,))`$ studied and calculated in .

A realization of the B-move in terms of the generators of the Ptolemy groupoid was already discussed in , where it was found to be related to the R-operator for $`𝒰_q(𝔰𝔩(2,))`$ that was proposed by Faddeev in . It turns out  that the corresponding operator becomes diagonal in a basis that diagonalizes the three length operators $`𝗅_i`$, $`i=1,2,3`$ corresponding to the boundaries of the three-holed sphere with eigenvalues $`l_i`$. A quick way to find the expression for the eigenvalue $`B(l_3,l_2,l_1)`$ of the operator that represents the B-move is to combine the observation from  with \[19, Theorem 6\]. The result is

$$B^\mathrm{T}(l_3,l_2,l_1)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\pi i(\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_3}\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_2}\mathrm{\Delta }_{l_1})\right),\mathrm{\Delta }_l=\frac{1}{4b^2}\left((1+b^2)^2+\left(\frac{l}{2\pi }\right)^2\right).$$
(13)
The data $`(F^\mathrm{T},B^\mathrm{T})`$ turn out  to be sufficient to construct a projective representation of the Moore-Seiberg groupoid on the quantized Teichmüller spaces $`_g^s`$. The expression for the generator of the S-move in terms of $`(F^\mathrm{T},B^\mathrm{T})`$ is similar to the one that was found for rational conformal field theories in .

## 4 Relation to Liouville theory

The spectrum of quantum Liouville theory can be represented as follows:

$$^\mathrm{L}_𝕊𝑑\alpha 𝒱_\alpha \overline{𝒱}_\alpha ,𝕊\frac{Q}{2}+i^+.$$
(14)
In (14) we used the notation $`𝒱_\alpha `$, $`\overline{𝒱}_\alpha `$ for the unitary highest weight representations of the Virasoro algebras which are generated from the modes of the holomorphic and anti-holomorphic parts of the energy-momentum tensor respectively. The central charge of the representations is given by the parameter $`b`$ via $`c=1+6Q^2`$, $`Q=b+b^1`$, and the highest weight of the representations $`𝒱_\alpha `$, $`\overline{𝒱}_\alpha `$ is parametrized as $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha =\alpha (Q\alpha )`$.

Quantum Liouville theory in genus zero may be characterized by the set of n-point functions of the primary fields $`V_\alpha (z,\overline{z})`$ which are the quantized exponential functions $`e^{2\alpha \varphi (z,\overline{z})}`$ of the Liouville field. The construction  of n-point functions $`V_{\alpha _n}(z_n,\overline{z}_n)\mathrm{}V_{\alpha _1}(z_1,\overline{z}_1)`$ can be conveniently formulated within the Moore-Seiberg formalism. A basis for the space of Liouville conformal blocks can be associated to each pants decomposition of the n-punctured sphere. The elements of this basis are constructed by taking matrix elements of compositions of chiral vertex operators . A labelling of the elements of such a basis will be obtained by assigning numbers $`\alpha _i\frac{Q}{2}+i^+`$ to the curves $`c_i`$ that define the pants decomposition. Changing the pants decomposition simply amounts to a change of basis in the space of conformal blocks. The corresponding transformations can again be constructed out of the representatives for the elementary A-moves and B-moves depicted in Figure 3. These moves are represented in terms of the fusion coefficients $`F_{\alpha \alpha ^{}}^\mathrm{L}\left[\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _3& \alpha _2\\ \alpha _4& \alpha _3\end{array}\right]`$ and the elementary braiding phase $`B^\mathrm{L}(\alpha _3,\alpha _2,\alpha _1)`$. The explicit expressions for the data $`(F^\mathrm{L},B^\mathrm{L})`$ were determined in . We would like to emphasize that the definition of the data $`(F^\mathrm{L},B^\mathrm{L})`$ involves nothing but the representation theory of the Virasoro algebra.

The main observation to be made is the following. Upon choosing a natural normalization for the Liouville conformal blocks one finds

$$(F^\mathrm{T},B^\mathrm{T})(F^\mathrm{L},B^\mathrm{L})\text{provided that}\alpha _i=\frac{Q}{2}+i\frac{l_i}{4\pi b}.$$
(15)
It follows that the spaces of conformal blocks of Liouville theory and the Hilbert spaces from the quantization of the Teichmüller spaces are indeed isomorphic as representations of the mapping class group. So far the conformal blocks of Liouville theory were only constructed in genus zero, but our results also imply that the corresponding mapping class group representation has a consistent and essentially unique extension to higher genus. Moreover, the geodesic length $`l`$ of a closed geodesic on the Riemann surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is indeed directly related to the representation $`𝒱_\alpha `$ that “flows through that cycle” as was anticipated in .


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In 1935, Schrödinger  showed that the nonlinear electrodynamics of Born and Infeld , proposed as a new fundamental theory of the electromagnetic field, possessed a remarkable property – invariance under U(1) duality rotations. Although the great expectations, which originally led the authors of  to put forward their model, never came true, the Born-Infeld action has re-appeared in the spotlight since the 1980’s as a low energy effective action in string theory . Along with patterns of duality in extended supergravity , this motivated Gaillard and Zumino, Gibbons and others  to develop a general theory of (nonlinear) self-duality in four and higher space-time dimensions for non-supersymmetric theories111Properties of nonlinear electrodynamics in curved space from the viewpoint of dualities were studied in .. Extension to 4D $`𝒩=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$ globally supersymmetric theories was given in . As a final step in developing the formalism, it was also shown in  how to re-formulate the requirement of nonlinear self-duality (i.e. a nonlinear equation which the action functional has to satisfy in order for the theory to be duality invariant) as a condition of manifest invariance of the interaction; in a sense, this is a nice extension of Schrödinger’s ideas .

There exist deep yet mysterious connections between nonlinear self-duality and supersymmetry and here we give three examples. First, in the case of partial spontaneous supersymmetry breakdown $`𝒩=2𝒩=1`$, the Maxwell-Goldstone multiplet  (coinciding with the $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric Born-Infeld action ) and the tensor Goldstone multiplet  were shown in  to be self-dual, i.e. invariant under U(1) duality rotations. Our second example concerns partial supersymmetry breakdown $`𝒩=4𝒩=2`$. To construct a Maxwell-Goldstone multiplet action for such a scenario – the $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetric Born-Infeld action222See  for earlier attempts to construct an $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetric version of the Born-Infeld action. – it was suggested in  to look for an $`𝒩=2`$ vector multiplet action which should be (i) self-dual; (ii) invariant under a nonlinearly realized central charge bosonic symmetry. These requirements turn out to allow one to restore the Goldstone multiplet action uniquely to any fixed order in powers of chiral superfield strength $`𝒲`$; this was carried out in  up to order $`𝒲^{10}`$. Recently, there has been considerable progress in developing the formalism of nonlinear realizations to describe the partial SUSY breaking $`𝒩=4𝒩=2`$ . So far, the authors of  have reproduced the action obtained in . Finally, we should mention that the (Coulomb branch) low energy effective action of the $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory is conjectured to be invariant under U(1) duality rotations  (a weaker form of self-duality of the effective action was proposed in ).

The above features provide enough evidence for considering supersymmetric self-dual systems to be quite interesting and their properties worth studying. In the present note, self-dual nonlinear supersymmetric electrodynamics  is coupled to $`𝒩=1`$ supergravity in the presence of nonlinear Kähler sigma models. To describe $`𝒩=1`$ supergravity, we separately consider its two off-shell realizations333The non-minimal version of $`𝒩=1`$ supergravity  does not lead to interesting matter couplings, see e.g. .: the old minimal formulation  and the new minimal formulation . By now, 4D $`𝒩=1`$ superfield supergravity is a subject of several textbooks  to which the interested reader is referred for further details and references.

The structure of the paper is as follows. Working with the old minimal version of $`𝒩=1`$ supergravity, in section 2 we derive the self-duality equation as the condition for a vector multiplet model to be invariant under U(1) duality rotations. We then demonstrate self-duality under a superfield Legendre transformation, introduce a family of self-dual nonlinear models and argue that the supercurrent and supertrace in such models are duality invariant. To a large extent, these results are just a minimal curved superspace extension of the globally supersymmetric results presented in . However, the game will become more interesting when we turn to the couplings to new minimal supergravity and Kähler sigma models. Section 3 is devoted to the coupling of self-dual nonlinear supersymmetric electrodynamics to the dilaton-axion multiplet in curved superspace; this is of interest from the point of view of string theory.

## 2 Electromagnetic duality rotations in curved superspace

We follow the notation444 In particular, $`z^M=(x^m,\theta ^\mu ,\overline{\theta }_{\dot{\mu }})`$ are the coordinates of $`𝒩=1`$ curved superspace, $`\mathrm{d}^8z=\mathrm{d}^4x\mathrm{d}^2\theta \mathrm{d}^2\overline{\theta }`$ is the full flat superspace measure, and $`\mathrm{d}^6z=\mathrm{d}^4x\mathrm{d}^2\theta `$ is the measure in the chiral subspace. and $`𝒩=1`$ supergravity conventions of . Unless otherwise stated we work with the old minimal formulation of $`𝒩=1`$ supergravity. The superspace geometry is described by covariant derivatives

$`𝒟_A`$ $`=`$ $`(𝒟_a,𝒟_\alpha ,\overline{𝒟}^{\dot{\alpha }})=E_A+\mathrm{\Omega }_A,`$
$`E_A`$ $`=`$ $`E_A{}_{}{}^{M}_{M}^{},\mathrm{\Omega }_A={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_A{}_{}{}^{bc}M_{bc}^{}=\mathrm{\Omega }_A{}_{}{}^{\beta \gamma }M_{\beta \gamma }^{}+\mathrm{\Omega }_A{}_{}{}^{\dot{\beta }\dot{\gamma }}\overline{M}_{\dot{\beta }\dot{\gamma }}^{},`$ (2.1)
with $`E_A^M`$ the supervielbein, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_A`$ the Lorentz superconnection and $`M_{bc}(M_{\beta \gamma },\overline{M}_{\dot{\beta }\dot{\gamma }})`$ the Lorentz generators. The covariant derivatives obey the following algebra:

$`\{𝒟_\alpha ,\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\}=2\mathrm{i}𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},`$
$`\{𝒟_\alpha ,𝒟_\beta \}`$ $`=`$ $`4\overline{R}M_{\alpha \beta },\{\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }},\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}\}=4R\overline{M}_{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }},`$ (2.2)
$`[\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }},𝒟_{\beta \dot{\beta }}]`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}\epsilon _{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }}(R𝒟_\beta +G_\beta {}_{}{}^{\dot{\gamma }}\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\gamma }}^{}(\overline{𝒟}^{\dot{\gamma }}G_\beta {}_{}{}^{\dot{\delta }})\overline{M}_{\dot{\gamma }\dot{\delta }}+2W_\beta {}_{}{}^{\gamma \delta }M_{\gamma \delta }^{})\mathrm{i}(𝒟_\beta R)\overline{M}_{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }},`$
$`[𝒟_\alpha ,𝒟_{\beta \dot{\beta }}]`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}\epsilon _{\alpha \beta }(\overline{R}\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}+G^\gamma {}_{\dot{\beta }}{}^{}𝒟_{\gamma }^{}(𝒟^\gamma G^\delta {}_{\dot{\beta }}{}^{})M_{\gamma \delta }+2\overline{W}_{\dot{\beta }}{}_{}{}^{\dot{\gamma }\dot{\delta }}\overline{M}_{\dot{\gamma }\dot{\delta }}^{})+\mathrm{i}(\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}\overline{R})M_{\alpha \beta },`$
where the tensors $`R`$, $`G_a=\overline{G}_a`$ and $`W_{\alpha \beta \gamma }=W_{(\alpha \beta \gamma )}`$ satisfy the Bianchi identities

$$\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}R=\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}W_{\alpha \beta \gamma }=0,\overline{𝒟}^{\dot{\gamma }}G_{\alpha \dot{\gamma }}=𝒟_\alpha R,𝒟^\gamma W_{\alpha \beta \gamma }=\mathrm{i}𝒟_{(\alpha }{}_{}{}^{\dot{\gamma }}G_{\beta )\dot{\gamma }}^{}.$$
(2.3)
Modulo purely gauge degrees of freedom, all geometric objects – the supervielbein and the superconnection – can be expressed in terms of three unconstrained superfields (known as the prepotentials of old minimal supergravity): gravitational superfield $`H^m=\overline{H}^m`$, chiral compensator $`\phi `$ ($`\overline{E}_{\dot{\alpha }}\phi =0`$) and its conjugate $`\overline{\phi }`$. The old minimal supergravity action is

$$S_{\mathrm{SG},\mathrm{old}}=3\mathrm{d}^8zE^1,E=\mathrm{Ber}(E_A{}_{}{}^{M}),$$
(2.4)
with the gravitational coupling constant being set equal to one.

In what follows, to simplify notation, we introduce

$$AB=\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}A^\alpha B_\alpha ,\overline{A}\overline{B}=\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{\overline{R}}\overline{A}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{B}^{\dot{\alpha }},$$
(2.5)
with $`A_\alpha `$ and $`B_\alpha `$ covariantly chiral spinor superfields, $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}A_\alpha =\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}B_\alpha =0`$ (a similar notation will also be used for chiral scalars). We often make use of the relation

$`{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8zE^1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}(\overline{𝒟}^24R)}`$ (2.6)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^6z\phi ^3(\overline{𝒟}^24R)},`$
where the equality in the last line takes place in the so-called chiral representation (see  for more details). This result is especially simple in the chiral case, $`=_\mathrm{c}/R`$, with $`_\mathrm{c}`$ a covariantly chiral scalar, $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}_\mathrm{c}=0`$.

### 2.1 Self-duality equation

Consider a model of a single Abelian $`𝒩=1`$ vector multiplet in curved superspace as generated by the action $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$. The covariantly (anti) chiral spinor superfield strengths $`\overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}`$ and $`W_\alpha `$,

$$W_\alpha =\frac{1}{4}(\overline{𝒟}^24R)𝒟_\alpha V,\overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}=\frac{1}{4}(𝒟^24\overline{R})\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}V,$$
(2.7)
are defined in terms of a real unconstrained prepotential $`V`$. Consequently, the strengths are constrained superfields satisfying the Bianchi identity

$$𝒟^\alpha W_\alpha =\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^{\dot{\alpha }}.$$
(2.8)
Suppose that $`S[W,\overline{W}]S[v]`$ can be unambiguously defined555As indicated in , this is always possible if $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$ does not involve the combination $`𝒟^\alpha W_\alpha `$ as an independent variable. as a functional of unconstrained (anti) chiral superfields $`\overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}`$ and $`W_\alpha `$. Then, one can define covariantly (anti) chiral superfields $`\overline{M}_{\dot{\alpha }}`$ and $`M_\alpha `$ as

$$\mathrm{i}M_\alpha [v]2\frac{\delta }{\delta W^\alpha }S[v],\mathrm{i}\overline{M}^{\dot{\alpha }}[v]2\frac{\delta }{\delta \overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}}S[v],$$
(2.9)
with the functional derivatives defined by

$`\delta S`$ $`=`$ $`\delta W{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta W}}+\delta \overline{W}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta \overline{W}}}.`$ (2.10)
The vector multiplet equation of motion following from the action $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$ reads

$$𝒟^\alpha M_\alpha =\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{M}^{\dot{\alpha }}.$$
(2.11)
Since the Bianchi identity (2.8) and the equation of motion (2.11) have the same functional form, one may consider U(1) duality rotations

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}M_\alpha ^{}[v^{}]\\ W_\alpha ^{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\tau & \hfill \mathrm{sin}\tau \\ \mathrm{sin}\tau & \hfill \mathrm{cos}\tau \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}M_\alpha [v]\\ W_\alpha \end{array}\right),`$ (2.18)
where $`M^{}`$ should be

$$\mathrm{i}M_\alpha ^{}[v^{}]=2\frac{\delta }{\delta W^\alpha }S[v^{}].$$
(2.19)
Following the method described in , the condition that $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$ be self-dual is equivalent to the reality condition

$$\mathrm{Im}\left(WW+MM\right)=0.$$
(2.20)
Any solution, $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$, of this self-duality equation generates a U(1) duality invariant supersymmetric electrodynamics coupled to old minimal supergravity. The self-duality equation can be shown to be equivalent to the following invariance condition under U(1) duality rotations (2.18)

$$S[v^{}]\frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}\left(W^{}M^{}[v^{}]\overline{W}^{}\overline{M}^{}[v^{}]\right)=S[v]\frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}\left(WM[v]\overline{W}\overline{M}[v]\right).$$
(2.21)
### 2.2 Invariance under superfield Legendre transformation

One of the nice properties of all models of self-dual electrodynamics is invariance under Legendre transformation . It was shown in  that this property also holds for any globally supersymmetric model of the massless vector multiplet that is invariant under U(1) duality rotations. We will demonstrate that this property also naturally extends to curved superspace.

Consider a massless vector multiplet model in curved superspace described by the action $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$. The Legendre transformation is defined by introducing an auxiliary action

$$S[𝒲,\overline{𝒲},W_\mathrm{D},\overline{W}_\mathrm{D}]=S[𝒲,\overline{𝒲}]\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}(𝒲W_\mathrm{D}\overline{𝒲}\overline{W}_\mathrm{D}),$$
(2.22)
where $`𝒲_\alpha `$ is now an unconstrained covariantly chiral spinor superfield, and $`W_{\mathrm{D}\alpha }`$ the dual field strength

$$W_{\mathrm{D}\alpha }=\frac{1}{4}(\overline{𝒟}^24R)𝒟_\alpha V_\mathrm{D},\overline{W}_{\mathrm{D}\dot{\alpha }}=\frac{1}{4}(𝒟^24\overline{R})\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}V_\mathrm{D},$$
(2.23)
with the Lagrange multiplier $`V_\mathrm{D}`$ a real scalar superfield. This model is equivalent to the original model, since upon elimination of $`W_\mathrm{D}`$ by its equation of motion we regain $`S[𝒲,\overline{𝒲}]`$, with the condition that $`𝒲`$ satisfy the Bianchi identity (2.8). However, we may instead eliminate $`𝒲`$ by its equation of motion, in which case we obtain a dual action $`S_\mathrm{D}[W_\mathrm{D},\overline{W}_\mathrm{D}]`$, the Legendre transform of $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$. Now, let $`S[W,\overline{W}]`$ be a solution of the self-duality equation (2.20), and hence it satisfies the invariance condition (2.21) under arbitrary U(1) duality rotations (2.18). Then, eq. (2.21) for a finite duality rotation $`\tau =\pi /2`$ is easily seen to be equivalent to the statement that $`S_\mathrm{D}=S`$.

### 2.3 Family of self-dual models

Extending the globally supersymmetric results of , we now present a family of $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric self-dual models with actions of the general form

$$S[W,\overline{W}]=\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}W^2+\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{\overline{R}}\overline{W}^2+\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^8zE^1W^2\overline{W}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }(u,\overline{u}),$$
(2.24)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(u,\overline{u})`$ is a real analytic function of the complex variable

$$u\frac{1}{8}(𝒟^24\overline{R})W^2.$$
(2.25)
The condition of self-duality (2.20) on the model (2.24) turns out to be equivalent to a differential equation which the interaction $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(u,\overline{u})`$ has to satisfy. This equation is

$$\mathrm{Im}\left\{\mathrm{\Gamma }\overline{u}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\right\}=0,\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{(u\mathrm{\Lambda })}{u}.$$
(2.26)
As an important example, consider a minimal curved superspace extension666Such a curved superspace action was discussed in . of the $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric Born-Infeld action

$$S_{\mathrm{BI}}=\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}X+\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{\overline{R}}\overline{X},$$
(2.27)
where the covariantly chiral scalar $`X`$ is a functional of $`W_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}`$ defined by the nonlinear constraint

$$X+\frac{1}{4}X(\overline{𝒟}^24R)\overline{X}=W^2.$$
(2.28)
Following , this can be shown to be equivalent to

$$S_{\mathrm{BI}}=\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}W^2+\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{\overline{R}}\overline{W}^2+\mathrm{d}^8zE^1\frac{W^2\overline{W}^2}{1+\frac{1}{2}A+\sqrt{1+A+\frac{1}{4}B^2}},$$
(2.29)
where

$$A=4(u+\overline{u}),B=4(u\overline{u}).$$
(2.30)
This action is of the form (2.24), and one can readily check that the differential equation (2.26) is satisfied. Therefore, the minimal curved superspace extension of the $`𝒩=1`$ super Born-Infeld action is self-dual.

### 2.4 Duality invariance of the supercurrent and supertrace

In the bosonic case, self-dual models have the important property that the energy-momentum tensor is invariant under U(1) duality rotations . It is natural to ask whether this property extends to the supersymmetric case, the superfield generalization of the energy-momentum tensor being the supercurrent $`T_a=\overline{T}_a`$ and supertrace $`T`$, $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}T=0`$. These are defined in terms of covariantized variational derivatives with respect to the supergravity prepotentials (see  for more details),

$$T_a=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }S}{\mathrm{\Delta }H^a},T=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }S}{\mathrm{\Delta }\phi },$$
(2.31)
and satisfy the conservation equation

$$\overline{𝒟}^{\dot{\alpha }}T_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}=\frac{2}{3}𝒟_\alpha T,$$
(2.32)
when the matter superfields are put on the mass shell.

Gaillard and Zumino  developed an elegant, model-independent proof of the fact that the energy-momentum tensor of any self-dual bosonic system is invariant under U(1) duality rotations. It is not quite trivial however to generalize this proof to the supersymmetric case, and this is why we will follow a brute-force approach, similar to , and directly check duality invariance of the supercurrent and supertrace.

Let us first turn to the supertrace. For the model (2.24), it is

$$T=\frac{1}{8}W^2(\overline{𝒟}^24R)\left[\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\right],$$
(2.33)
with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ defined in (2.26). Consider an infinitesimal duality rotation $`\delta W_\alpha =\tau M_\alpha ,\delta M_\alpha =\tau W_\alpha `$, where

$$\mathrm{i}M_\alpha =W_\alpha \left\{1\frac{1}{4}(\overline{𝒟}^24R)\left[\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }+\frac{1}{8}(𝒟^24\overline{R})\left(W^2\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u}\right)\right)\right]\right\}.$$
(2.34)
It is an instructive exercise to show that $`\delta T`$ vanishes for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }0`$ only if the self-duality equation (2.26) is taken into account. Now, the conservation equation (2.32) is to be satisfied both before and after applying the duality rotation. Since $`T`$ is duality invariant, the left hand side of (2.32) should also be invariant. This essentially implies duality invariance of the supercurrent.

Turning now to the supercurrent, with the use of the techniques described in , we find

$`T_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}M_\alpha \overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}\mathrm{i}W_\alpha \overline{M}_{\dot{\alpha }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\left(W^2\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)\right)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}G_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}W^2\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}[𝒟_\alpha ,\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}]\left(W^2\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\right)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}(W^2\stackrel{}{𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}}\overline{W}^2)\mathrm{\Lambda }{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}W^2\overline{W}^2(𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}u){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}W^2\overline{W}^2(𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{u}){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\overline{u}}}`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{16}}(𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}W^2)\overline{W}^2(𝒟^24\overline{R})\left(W^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{16}}W^2(𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^2)(\overline{𝒟}^24R)\left(\overline{W}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\overline{u}}}\right).`$
Off the mass shell, the variational derivative $`\mathrm{\Delta }S/\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ can be shown to include the extra (gauge non-invariant) term

$$\frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}(𝒟^\beta M_\beta \overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}\overline{M}^{\dot{\beta }})[𝒟_\alpha ,\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}]V,$$
(2.36)
which involves the naked prepotential $`V`$ and therefore does not allow a naive generalization of the Gaillard-Zumino proof  to superspace.

A tedious calculation is required to explicitly show that (i) the conservation equation (2.32) is indeed satisfied; and (ii) the supercurrent (2.4) is duality invariant. When performing these calculations, the following equivalent expression for the supercurrent is often easier to work with:

$`T_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}M_\alpha \overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}\mathrm{i}W_\alpha \overline{M}_{\dot{\alpha }}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\left(W^2\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\right)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}G_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}W^2\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}[𝒟_\alpha ,\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}]\left(W^2\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }+\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\right)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}W^2𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\left[\overline{W}^2\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}(𝒟^24\overline{R})\left(W^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{u}}\right)\right)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}W^2\overline{W}^2(𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{u}){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\overline{u}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{16}}W^2(𝒟_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^2)(\overline{𝒟}^24R)\left(\overline{W}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\overline{u}}}\right).`$
### 2.5 Coupling to new minimal supergravity

It is known that new minimal supergravity can be treated as a super-Weyl invariant dynamical system describing the coupling of old minimal supergravity to a real covariantly linear scalar superfield $`𝕃`$,

$$(\overline{𝒟}^24R)𝕃=(𝒟^24\overline{R})𝕃=0.$$
(2.38)
Any system of matter superfields $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ coupled to new minimal supergravity can be treated as a super-Weyl invariant coupling of old minimal supergravity to the matter superfields $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and $`𝕃`$ (see  for a review). It is clear that matter couplings in the new minimal formulation of supergravity are more restrictive as compared to the old minimal version. Here we will demonstrate how to couple the models of self-dual nonlinear electrodynamics to new minimal supergravity.

Super-Weyl transformations, originally introduced in , are simply local rescalings of the chiral compensator in old minimal supergravity (see ). In terms of the covariant derivatives, the super-Weyl transformation777Under (2.39), the full superspace measure changes as $`\mathrm{d}^8zE^1\mathrm{d}^8zE^1\mathrm{exp}(\sigma +\overline{\sigma })`$, while the chiral superspace measure transforms as $`\mathrm{d}^8zE^1/R\mathrm{d}^8z(E^1/R)\mathrm{exp}(3\sigma )`$, see eq. (2.6). is

$$𝒟_\alpha \mathrm{e}^{\sigma /2\overline{\sigma }}\left(𝒟_\alpha (𝒟^\beta \sigma )M_{\alpha \beta }\right),\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\mathrm{e}^{\overline{\sigma }/2\sigma }\left(\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}(\overline{𝒟}^{\dot{\beta }}\overline{\sigma })\overline{M}_{\dot{\beta }\dot{\alpha }}\right),$$
(2.39)
with $`\sigma (z)`$ an arbitrary covariantly chiral scalar parameter, $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\sigma =0`$. Since

$$(𝒟^24\overline{R})\mathrm{e}^{2\overline{\sigma }}(𝒟^24\overline{R})\mathrm{e}^\sigma $$
(2.40)
when acting on a scalar superfield, it is clear that the super-Weyl transformation law of $`𝕃`$ is uniquely fixed to be

$$𝕃\mathrm{e}^{\sigma \overline{\sigma }}𝕃.$$
(2.41)
The new minimal supergravity action888In the flat superspace limit, when we set $`H^m=0`$ and $`\phi =1`$, such an action describes the so-called improved tensor multiplet . is

$$S_{\mathrm{SG},\mathrm{new}}=3\mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃\mathrm{ln}𝕃.$$
(2.42)
Given a massless vector multiplet, eq. (2.7), the gauge field $`V`$ is inert under the super-Weyl transformations, while $`W_\alpha `$ changes as

$$W_\alpha \mathrm{e}^{3\sigma /2}W_\alpha .$$
(2.43)
It is then clear that only the kinetic term in (2.24) is super-Weyl invariant. However, the nonlinear part of (2.24) can be promoted to a super-Weyl invariant functional by coupling the vector multiplet to $`𝕃`$. To achieve this, it is sufficient to notice that the combination999Here we actually generalize the construction  of $`𝒩=1`$ superconformal U(1) duality invariant systems in flat superspace.

$$(𝒟^24\overline{R})\left(\frac{W^2}{𝕃^2}\right)$$
(2.44)
is super-Weyl invariant. As a result, we can replace the action (2.24) by the following functional101010Without spoiling the super-Weyl invariance and self-duality of the action (2.45), the ‘compensator’ $`𝕃`$ can be replaced in (2.45) by $`𝕃/\kappa `$, with $`\kappa `$ a coupling constant. We set this constant to be one since it can be absorbed via renormalization of the self-interaction, $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(u,\overline{u})=\kappa ^2\mathrm{\Lambda }(\kappa ^2u,\kappa ^2\overline{u})`$, see .

$`S[W,\overline{W},𝕃]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}W^2}`$ $`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{\overline{R}}\overline{W}^2}`$ (2.45)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8zE^1\frac{W^2\overline{W}^2}{𝕃^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }(\frac{u}{𝕃^2},\frac{\overline{u}}{𝕃^2})},`$
which is (i) super-Weyl invariant and (ii) self-dual, i.e. it solves the self-duality equation (2.20). This action describes self-dual supersymmetric electrodynamics in new minimal supergravity.

### 2.6 Coupling to nonlinear sigma models

As is known, supersymmetric nonlinear sigma models are most easily described in the framework of new minimal supergravity (see, e.g.  for a review). Given a Kähler manifold parametrized by complex coordinates $`\varphi `$ and their conjugates $`\overline{\varphi }`$, with $`K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })`$ the Kähler potential, the corresponding supergravity-matter action is

$$S=3\mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃\mathrm{ln}𝕃+\mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi }).$$
(2.46)
The dynamical variables $`\varphi `$ are covariantly chiral scalar superfields, $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\varphi =0`$, being inert with respect to the super-Weyl transformations. The action is obviously super-Weyl invariant. Moreover, the action is invariant under the Kähler transformations

$$K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })+\lambda (\varphi )+\overline{\lambda }(\overline{\varphi }),$$
(2.47)
with $`\lambda (\varphi )`$ an arbitrary holomorphic function.

It is easy to couple the above model to the self-dual supersymmetric electrodynamics (2.45). The supergravity-matter system is described by the action

$$S[W,\overline{W},\varphi ,\overline{\varphi },𝕃]=3\mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃\mathrm{ln}𝕃+\mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })+S[W,\overline{W},𝕃],$$
(2.48)
and this theory possesses several important symmetries: (i) super-Weyl invariance; (ii) Kähler invariance; (iii) U(1) duality invariance. We should now uncover the description of this theory in the framework of old minimal supergravity.

Let us replace the action (2.48) by the following auxiliary action

$$S[W,\overline{W},\varphi ,\overline{\varphi },𝕃,U]=3\mathrm{d}^8zE^1\left(U𝕃\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\right)+S[W,\overline{W},\mathrm{{\rm Y}}],$$
(2.49)
where

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}=\mathrm{exp}\left(U\frac{1}{3}K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })\right).$$
(2.50)
Here the additional dynamical variable $`U`$ is an unconstrained real scalar superfield, and the action $`S[W,\overline{W},\mathrm{{\rm Y}}]`$ is obtained from (2.45) by replacing $`𝕃\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$. In order for the action to be super-Weyl invariant, the superfield $`U`$ must possess the following super-Weyl transformation law:

$$UU\sigma \overline{\sigma }.$$
(2.51)
The theories (2.48) and (2.49) are equivalent to each other. Indeed, the $`U`$-equation of motion derived from (2.49) is algebraic and it can be uniquely solved by expressing $`U`$ in terms of the other superfields. Upon elimination of $`U`$ in this way we regain the action (2.48). On the other hand, let us consider the $`𝕃`$-equation of motion derived from (2.49): $`(\overline{𝒟}^24R)𝒟_\alpha U=0`$. The general solution to this equation is just the requirement that $`U`$ be the sum of a covariantly chiral scalar superfield and its conjugate; as a result, the linear superfield $`𝕃`$ completely decouples. Now, the super-Weyl gauge freedom (2.51) allows us to impose the gauge condition $`U=0`$, and the action (2.49) then becomes

$$S[W,\overline{W},\varphi ,\overline{\varphi }]=3\mathrm{d}^8zE^1\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{3}K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })}+S[W,\overline{W},\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{3}K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })}].$$
(2.52)
This is the old minimal supergravity counterpart of the model (2.48). To preserve the super-Weyl gauge condition $`U=0`$, any Kähler transformation (2.47) must now be accompanied by the induced super-Weyl transformation with $`\sigma =\frac{1}{3}\lambda (\varphi )`$. As a result, one ends up with the so-called super-Weyl–Kähler transformations (see  for more details).

## 3 Coupling to the dilaton-axion multiplet

In the above analysis of the coupling of self-dual supersymmetric electrodynamics to Kähler sigma models in curved superspace, it was assumed that the matter superfields, $`\varphi `$ and $`\overline{\varphi }`$, are inert under the electromagnetic duality rotations. Of some interest is a more general situation when, say, a chiral matter superfield $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and its conjugate $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ do transform under duality rotations, which can now span a larger group than the one corresponding to the pure gauge field case. Coupling to the so-called dilaton-axion supermultiplet is an important example.

We start by formulating the conditions of duality invariance for the Abelian vector multiplet $`(W_\alpha ,\overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }})`$ interacting with chiral matter $`(\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})`$ in curved superspace. Let $`S[v]=S[W,\overline{W},\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]`$ be the action functional of the supergravity-matter systems, with the dependence of $`S[v]`$ on the supergravity prepotentials being implicit. We again introduce covariantly (anti) chiral spinor superfields $`\overline{M}^{\dot{\alpha }}`$ and $`M_\alpha `$ defined by the rule (2.9). Since the Bianchi identity $`𝒟^\alpha W_\alpha =\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^{\dot{\alpha }}`$ and the gauge field equation of motion $`𝒟^\alpha M_\alpha =\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{M}^{\dot{\alpha }}`$ are of the same functional form, we may consider infinitesimal duality transformations

$`\delta \left(\begin{array}{c}M_\alpha \\ W_\alpha \end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}M_\alpha \\ W_\alpha \end{array}\right),\delta \mathrm{\Phi }=\xi (\mathrm{\Phi }),`$ (3.7)
with $`\xi (\mathrm{\Phi })`$ a holomorphic function and $`a,b,c`$ and $`d`$ real numbers.

Following , the conditions of duality invariance in the presence of matter can be shown to be

$`\delta \mathrm{\Phi }{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }}}+\delta \overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta \overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}b\left(WW\overline{W}\overline{W}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}c\left(MM\overline{M}\overline{M}\right)`$ (3.8)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}a\left(WM\overline{W}\overline{M}\right),`$
with $`d=a`$. We see that the maximal group of duality transformations is $`\mathrm{Sp}(2,)\mathrm{SL}(2,)`$. The complex variable $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ should then parametrize the homogeneous space SL$`(2,)/`$U(1), with the vector field $`\xi (\mathrm{\Phi })`$ in (3.8) generating the action of SL$`(2,)`$ on the coset space. The matter-free case, which was considered before, corresponds to freezing the superfield $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)`$ to a given point of the space SL$`(2,)/`$U(1). In such a case, the duality group, SL$`(2,)`$, reduces to U(1) – the stabilizer of the point chosen.

To describe the dilaton-axion multiplet, we make use of the lower half-plane realization of the coset space SL$`(2,)/`$U(1). Then, the variation $`\delta \mathrm{\Phi }=\xi (\mathrm{\Phi })`$ in (3.7) is

$$\delta \mathrm{\Phi }=b+2a\mathrm{\Phi }c\mathrm{\Phi }^2.$$
(3.9)
Our solution to the equations (3.8) reads

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`3{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃\mathrm{ln}𝕃}+{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃\left(𝒦(\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})+K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })\right)}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}\mathrm{\Phi }W^2}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{\overline{R}}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\overline{W}^2}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8zE^1(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})^2\frac{W^2\overline{W}^2}{𝕃^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }(\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})\frac{u}{𝕃^2},\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})\frac{\overline{u}}{𝕃^2})},`$
and $`u`$ is defined in (2.25). Here $`𝒦(\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})`$ is the Kähler potential of the Kähler manifold SL$`(2,)/`$U(1). The term $`\mathrm{d}^8zE^1𝕃K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })`$ in (3) corresponds to the chiral matter which is inert under the duality rotations. For $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{i}`$, the action (3) reduces to (2.48).

The supergravity-matter system (3) enjoys the following important properties: (i) super-Weyl invariance; (ii) Kähler invariance; (iii) SL$`(2,)`$ duality invariance. To re-formulate this theory in the framework of the old minimal version of $`𝒩=1`$ supergravity, one should eliminate the real linear compensator $`𝕃`$ following the procedure described in subsection 2.6. This will lead to

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`3{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8zE^1\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{3}𝒦(\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})\frac{1}{3}K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })\right)}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{R}\mathrm{\Phi }W^2}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8z\frac{E^1}{\overline{R}}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\overline{W}^2}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^8zE^1(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})^2\frac{W^2\overline{W}^2}{𝚼^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }(\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})\frac{u}{𝚼^2},\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})\frac{\overline{u}}{𝚼^2})},`$
where

$$𝚼=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{3}𝒦(\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})\frac{1}{3}K(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })\right).$$
(3.12)
Unlike (3), this action enjoys the super-Weyl–Kähler invariance.

To describe the dilaton-axion complex, we have used the $`𝒩=1`$ chiral multiplet. In the context of heterotic string theory, the dilaton-axion complex is realized in terms of the $`𝒩=1`$ tensor multiplet. Transition from the chiral to the tensor realization can be implemented as follows. The dilaton-axion Kähler potential can be chosen to be $`𝒦(\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})=\kappa ^2\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{i}(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})`$, with $`\kappa `$ a constant. As a result, the action (3) can be brought (at the cost of sacrificing the manifest gauge invariance in the second line of the action) to such a form that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ appear only in the real combination $`\mathrm{i}(\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})`$. We can then apply a superfield Legendre transformation which turns the description in terms of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ into the one in terms of a real superfield $`𝔾`$ under the modified linearity condition

$$(\overline{𝒟}^24R)𝔾=W^\alpha W_\alpha ,(𝒟^24\overline{R})𝔾=\overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^{\dot{\alpha }}.$$
(3.13)
This constraint is known to describe the Chern-Simons coupling of the tensor multiplet to the vector multiplet. An interesting open question is: What is the fate of the SL$`(2,)`$ duality symmetry in this dual version of the theory?

Acknowledgements. We are grateful to Ian McArthur for discussions and for reading the manuscript. The work of SK is supported by the Australian Research Council, the Australian Academy of Science as well as by UWA research grants. The work of SMc is supported by the Hackett Postgraduate Scholarship.