Unitary Realizations of U-duality Groups as Conformal and Quasiconformal Groups and Extremal Black Holes of Supergravity Theories

We review the current status of the construction of unitary representations of U-duality groups of supergravity theories in five, four and three dimensions. We focus mainly on the maximal supergravity theories and on the N=2 Maxwell-Einstein supergravity (MESGT) theories defined by Jordan algebras of degree three in five dimensions and their descendants in four and three dimensions. Entropies of the extremal black hole solutions of these theories in five and four dimensions are given by certain invariants of their U-duality groups. The five dimensional U-duality groups admit extensions to spectrum generating generalized conformal groups which are isomorphic to the U-duality groups of corresponding four dimensional theories. Similarly, the U-duality groups of four dimensional theories admit extensions to spectrum generating quasiconformal groups that are isomorphic to the corresponding U-duality groups in three dimensions. We outline the oscillator construction of the unitary representations of generalized conformal groups that admit positive energy representations, which include the U-duality groups of N=2 MESGT's in four dimensions. We conclude with a review of the minimal unitary realizations of U-duality groups that are obtained by quantizations of their quasiconformal actions.Comment: 24 pages; latex fil

Generalized AdS/CFT Dualities and Space-Time Symmetries of M/Superstring Theory

I review the relationship between AdS/CFT (anti-de Sitter / conformal field theory) dualities and the general theory of unitary lowest weight (ULWR) (positive energy) representations of non-compact space-time groups and supergroups. The ULWR's have the remarkable property that they can be constructed by tensoring some fundamental ULWR's (singletons or doubletons). Furthermore, one can go from the manifestly unitary compact basis of the ULWR's of the conformal group (Wigner picture) to the manifestly covariant coherent state basis (Dirac picture) labelled by the space-time coordinates. Hence every irreducible ULWR corresponds to a covariant field with a definite conformal dimension. These results extend to higher dimensional generalized spacetimes (superspaces) defined by Jordan (super) algebras and Jordan (super) triple systems. In particular, they extend to the ULWR's of the M-theory symmetry superalgebra OSp(1/32,R).Comment: Latex file, 11 pages; invited talk to appear in the Proceedings of the IXth Marcel Grossmann Meeting (Rome, July 2000

Generalized Conformal and Superconformal Group Actions and Jordan Algebras

We study the conformal groups of Jordan algebras along the lines suggested by Kantor. They provide a natural generalization of the concept of conformal transformations that leave 2-angles invariant to spaces where "p-angles" can be defined. We give an oscillator realization of the generalized conformal groups of Jordan algebras and Jordan triple systems(JTS). These results are extended to Jordan superalgebras and super JTS's. We give the conformal algebras of simple Jordan algebras, hermitian JTS's and the simple Jordan superalgebras as classified by Kac.Comment: 13 pp, IASSNS-HEP-92/8

Quasiconformal Group Approach to Higher Spin Algebras, their Deformations and Supersymmetric Extensions

The quasiconformal method provides us with a unified approach to the construction of minimal unitary representations (minrep) of noncompact groups, their deformations as well as their supersymmetric extensions. We review the quasiconformal construction of the minrep of SO(d,2), its deformations and their applications to unitary realizations of AdS_{(d+1)}/CFT_d higher spin algebras and their deformations for arbitrary d and supersymmetric extensions for dimensions d less than seven. AdS_{(d+1)}/CFT_d higher spin algebras, their deformations and supersymmetric extensions are given by the enveloping algebras of the quasiconformal realizations of the minrep, its deformations and supersymmetric extensions, respectively, and are in one-to-one correspondence with massless conformal fields for arbitrary d and massless conformal supermultiplets for dimensions d less than seven.Comment: 36 pages; latex file; To appear in the "Proceedings of the International Workshop on Higher Spin Gauge Theories" , Singapore, November 4-6, 201

On the Chiral Rings in N=2 and N=4 Superconformal Algebras

We study the chiral rings in N=2 and N=4 superconformal algebras. The chiral primary states of N=2 superconformal algebras realized over hermitian triple systems are given. Their coset spaces G/H are hermitian symmetric which can be compact or non-compact. In the non-compact case, under the requirement of unitarity of the representations of G we find an infinite set of chiral primary states associated with the holomorphic discrete series representations of G. Further requirement of the unitarity of the corresponding N=2 module truncates this infinite set to a finite subset. The chiral primary states of the N=2 superconformal algebras realized over Freudenthal triple systems are also studied. These algebras have the special property that they admit an extension to N=4 superconformal algebras with the gauge group SU(2)XSU(2)XU(1). We generalize the concept of the chiral rings to N=4 superconformal algebras. We find four different rings associated with each sector (left or right moving). We also show that our analysis yields all the possible rings of N=4 superconformal algebras.Comment: 29 Page

Massless conformal fields, AdS_{d+1}/CFT_d higher spin algebras and their deformations

We extend our earlier work on the minimal unitary representation of $SO(d,2)$ and its deformations for $d=4,5$ and $6$ to arbitrary dimensions $d$. We show that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the minrep of $SO(d,2)$ and its deformations and massless conformal fields in Minkowskian spacetimes in $d$ dimensions. The minrep describes a massless conformal scalar field, and its deformations describe massless conformal fields of higher spin. The generators of Joseph ideal vanish identically as operators for the quasiconformal realization of the minrep, and its enveloping algebra yields directly the standard bosonic $AdS_{(d+1)}/CFT_d$ higher spin algebra. For deformed minreps the generators of certain deformations of Joseph ideal vanish as operators and their enveloping algebras lead to deformations of the standard bosonic higher spin algebra. In odd dimensions there is a unique deformation of the higher spin algebra corresponding to the spinor singleton. In even dimensions one finds infinitely many deformations of the higher spin algebra labelled by the eigenvalues of Casimir operator of the little group $SO(d-2)$ for massless representations.Comment: 41 pages; LaTeX file; Minor improvements in presentation; Typos corrected; References added; Version published in NP

Deformed Twistors and Higher Spin Conformal (Super-)Algebras in Six Dimensions

Massless conformal scalar field in six dimensions corresponds to the minimal unitary representation (minrep) of the conformal group SO(6,2). This minrep admits a family of deformations labelled by the spin t of an SU(2)_T group, which is the 6d analog of helicity in four dimensions. These deformations of the minrep of SO(6,2) describe massless conformal fields that are symmetric tensors in the spinorial representation of the 6d Lorentz group. The minrep and its deformations were obtained by quantization of the nonlinear realization of SO(6,2) as a quasiconformal group in arXiv:1005.3580. We give a novel reformulation of the generators of SO(6,2) for these representations as bilinears of deformed twistorial oscillators which transform nonlinearly under the Lorentz group SO(5,1) and apply them to define higher spin algebras and superalgebras in AdS_7. The higher spin (HS) algebra of Fradkin-Vasiliev type in AdS_7 is simply the enveloping algebra of SO(6,2) quotiented by a two-sided ideal (Joseph ideal) which annihilates the minrep. We show that the Joseph ideal vanishes identically for the quasiconformal realization of the minrep and its enveloping algebra leads directly to the HS algebra in AdS_7. Furthermore, the enveloping algebras of the deformations of the minrep define a discrete infinite family of HS algebras in AdS_7 for which certain 6d Lorentz covariant deformations of the Joseph ideal vanish identically. These results extend to superconformal algebras OSp(8*|2N) and we find a discrete infinite family of HS superalgebras as enveloping algebras of the minimal unitary supermultiplet and its deformations. Our results suggest the existence of a discrete family of (supersymmetric) HS theories in AdS_7 which are dual to free (super)conformal field theories (CFTs) or to interacting but integrable (supersymmetric) CFTs in 6d.Comment: 30 pages; Latex file; Discussion in section 3.2 expanded; typos corrected; minor modifications; version to be published in JHE