On the Determination of the Dilaton–Antisymmetric Tensor Couplings in Supergravity Theories

A new approach is provided to determine the dilaton–antisymmetric tensor coupling in a supergravity theory by considering the static supersymmetric field configuration around a super extended object, which is consistently formulated in a curved superspace. By this, the corresponding SUSY transformation rules can also be determined for vanishing fermionic fields as well as bosonic fields other than those in the determined coupling. Therefore, we can, in turn, use this determined part of the supergravity theory to study all the related vacuum-like solutions. We have determined the dilaton–antisymmetric tensor couplings, in which each of the antisymmetric tensors is a singlet of the automorphism group of the corresponding superalgebra, for every supergravity multiplet. This actually happens only for N ≤ 2 supergravity theories, which agrees completely with the spincontent analysis and the classified N ≤ 2 super p-branes, therefore giving more support to the existence of the fundamental Type II p-branes. A prediction is made of the D = 9, N = 2 supergravity which has not yet been written down so far. CERN-TH.6691/93 May 1993 † Supported partially by a World Laboratory Fellowship