We study the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action with one linear and one non-linear supersymmetry in the presence of a constant Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) D-term added explicitly or through a deformation of supersymmetry transformations. The linear supersymmetry appears to be spontaneously broken since the D auxiliary field gets a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value and an extra term proportional to the FI parameter involving fermions emerges in the non-linear formulation of the action written recently. However in this note, we show that on-shell this action is equivalent to a standard supersymmetric DBI action ${it without}$ FI term but with redefined tension, at least up to order of mass-dimension 12 effective interactions.
We propose a four-dimensional N = 1 supergravity-based Starobinsky-type inflationary model in terms of a single massive vector multiplet, whose action includes the Dirac-Born-Infeld-type kinetic terms and a generalized (new) Fayet-Iliopolulos-type term without gauging the R-symmetry. The bosonic action and the scalar potential are computed. Inflaton is the superpartner of goldstino in our model, and supersymmetry is spontaneously broken after inflation by the D-type mechanism, whose scale is related to the value of the cosmological constant.
The Hawking-Moss tunneling rate for a field described by the Dirac-Born-Infeld action is calculated using a stochastic approach. We find that the effect of the non-trivial kinetic term is to enhance the tunneling rate, which can be exponentially significant. This result should be compared to the DBI enhancement found in the Coleman-de Luccia case.
We analyze the exact perturbative solution of N=2 Born-Infeld theory which is believed to be defined by Ketovs equation. This equation can be considered as a truncation of an infinite system of coupled differential equations defining Born-Infeld action with one manifest N=2 and one hidden N=2 supersymmetries. We explicitly demonstrate that infinitely many new structures appear in the higher orders of the perturbative solution to Ketovs equation. Thus, the full solution cannot be represented as a function depending on {it a finite number} of its arguments. We propose a mechanism for generating the new structures in the solution and show how it works up to 18-th order. Finally, we discuss two new superfield actions containing an infinite number of terms and sharing some common features with N=2 supersymmetric Born-Infeld action.
The U(1) vector multiplet theory with the Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) term is one of the oldest and simplest models for spontaneously broken rigid supersymmetry. Lifting the FI term to supergravity requires gauged $R$-symmetry, as was first demonstrated in 1977 by Freedman within ${cal N}=1$ supergravity. There exists an alternative to the standard FI mechanism, which is reviewed in this conference paper. It is obtained by replacing the FI model with a manifestly gauge-invariant action such that its functional form is determined by two arbitrary real functions of a single complex variable. One of these functions generates a superconformal kinetic term for the vector multiplet, while the other yields a generalised FI term. Coupling such a vector multiplet model to supergravity does not require gauging of the $R$-symmetry. These generalised FI terms are consistently defined for any off-shell formulation for ${cal N}=1$ supergravity, and are compatible with a supersymmetric cosmological term.
We discuss recent results on one-loop contributions to the effective action in {cal N}=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. Contributions with five external vector fields are compared with corresponding ones in open superstring theory in order to understand the relation with the F^5 terms that appear in the nonabelian generalization of the Born-Infeld action.