Supergravity

Supergravity ( SUGRA ) referred to in theoretical physics, a group of field theories which combine the principles of general relativity and supersymmetry.

Its first representative in four spacetime dimensions was constructed in 1973 in Russia by Volkov and Soroka and 1976 in the west Daniel Z. Freedman, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen and Sergio Ferrara. The graviton with spin 2 is thus (at least) associated with a fermionic super- partner with spin 3/2, the so-called gravitino.

In extended - supersymmetric versions are available in addition to several other fields gravitinos with lower spin. Such models often arise as a dimensional reduction of higher-dimensional theories.

Ten-dimensional supergravity theories arise as limiting cases of superstring theories in the limit of vanishing string length and are classified into types I, IIA and IIB.

Elfdimensionale supergravity

The unique elfdimensionale supergravity with the highest possible number of dimensions ( with only one temporal dimension ) plays an important role, especially as the limit of the superstring theories parent M- theory. The elfdimensionale supergravity was proposed even before the string theory as a theory of everything, because they claim to be a finite theory of gravity promised after reduction to four dimensions, to include with sufficiently many quantum fields and symmetries of the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. The finiteness of this theory has so far not be proved or definitely excluded.

Credentials

• D.Z. Freedman, P. van Nieuwenhuizen, S. Ferrara, "Progress Toward A Theory Of Super Gravity", Physical Review D13 (1976), pp. 3214-3218.
• E. Cremmer, B. Julia, J. Scherk, " Supergravity theory in eleven dimensions", Physics Letters B 76 (1978 ) pp. 409-412.
• P. van Nieuwenhuizen, " Supergravity ", Physics Reports 68 (1981 ) pp. 189-398.