On Brane Actions and Superembeddings

Actions for branes, with or without worldsurface gauge fields, are discussed in a unified framework. A simple algorithm is given for constructing the component Green-Schwarz actions. Superspace actions are also discussed. Three examples are given to illustrate the general procedure: the membrane in D=11 and the D2-brane, which both have on-shell worldsurface supermultiplets, and the membrane in D=4, which has an off-shell multiplet.Comment: 19 pages, late

Supersymmetric Higher Spin Theories

We revisit the higher spin extensions of the anti de Sitter algebra in four dimensions that incorporate internal symmetries and admit representations that contain fermions, classified long ago by Konstein and Vasiliev. We construct the $dS_4$, Euclidean and Kleinian version of these algebras, as well as the corresponding fully nonlinear Vasiliev type higher spin theories, in which the reality conditions we impose on the master fields play a crucial role. The ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric higher spin theory in $dS_4$, on which we elaborate further, is included in this class of models. A subset of Konstein-Vasiliev algebras are the higher spin extensions of the $AdS_4$ superalgebras $osp(4|{\cal N})$ for ${\cal N}=1,2,4$ mod 4 and can be realized using fermionic oscillators. We tensor the higher superalgebras of the latter kind with appropriate internal symmetry groups and show that the ${\cal N}=3$ mod 4 higher spin algebras are isomorphic to those with ${\cal N}=4$ mod 4. We describe the fully nonlinear higher spin theories based on these algebras as well, and we elaborate further on the ${\cal N}=6$ supersymmetric theory, providing two equivalent descriptions one of which exhibits manifestly its relation to the ${\cal N}=8$ supersymmetric higher spin theory.Comment: 30 pages. Contribution to J. Phys. A special volume on "Higher Spin Theories and AdS/CFT" edited by M. R. Gaberdiel and M. Vasilie

On a Three-Dimensional Gravity Model with Higher Derivatives

The purpose of this work is to present a model for 3D massive gravity with topological and higher-derivative terms. Causality and unitarity are discussed at tree-level. Power-counting renormalizability is also contemplated.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, no figures; to be published in Gen. Rel. Gra

An action principle for Vasiliev's four-dimensional higher-spin gravity

We provide Vasiliev's fully nonlinear equations of motion for bosonic gauge fields in four spacetime dimensions with an action principle. We first extend Vasiliev's original system with differential forms in degrees higher than one. We then derive the resulting duality-extended equations of motion from a variational principle based on a generalized Hamiltonian sigma-model action. The generalized Hamiltonian contains two types of interaction freedoms: One set of functions that appears in the Q-structure of the generalized curvatures of the odd forms in the duality-extended system; and another set depending on the Lagrange multipliers, encoding a generalized Poisson structure, i.e. a set of polyvector fields of ranks two or higher in target space. We find that at least one of the two sets of interaction-freedom functions must be linear in order to ensure gauge invariance. We discuss consistent truncations to the minimal Type A and B models (with only even spins), spectral flows on-shell and provide boundary conditions on fields and gauge parameters that are compatible with the variational principle and that make the duality-extended system equivalent, on shell, to Vasiliev's original system.Comment: 37 pages. References added, corrected typo

Isotropic reconstruction of 3D fluorescence microscopy images using convolutional neural networks

Fluorescence microscopy images usually show severe anisotropy in axial versus lateral resolution. This hampers downstream processing, i.e. the automatic extraction of quantitative biological data. While deconvolution methods and other techniques to address this problem exist, they are either time consuming to apply or limited in their ability to remove anisotropy. We propose a method to recover isotropic resolution from readily acquired anisotropic data. We achieve this using a convolutional neural network that is trained end-to-end from the same anisotropic body of data we later apply the network to. The network effectively learns to restore the full isotropic resolution by restoring the image under a trained, sample specific image prior. We apply our method to $3$ synthetic and $3$ real datasets and show that our results improve on results from deconvolution and state-of-the-art super-resolution techniques. Finally, we demonstrate that a standard 3D segmentation pipeline performs on the output of our network with comparable accuracy as on the full isotropic data

M5-brane Effective Action as an On-shell Action in Supergravity

We show that the covariant effective action for M5-brane is a solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi (H-J) equations of 11-dimensional supergravity. The solution to the H-J equations reproduces the supergravity solution that represents the M2-M5 bound states.Comment: 20 pages, references added, typos correcte

Higher Spin Gauge Theory and Holography: The Three-Point Functions

In this paper we calculate the tree level three-point functions of Vasiliev's higher spin gauge theory in AdS4 and find agreement with the correlators of the free field theory of N massless scalars in three dimensions in the O(N) singlet sector. This provides substantial evidence that Vasiliev theory is dual to the free field theory, thus verifying a conjecture of Klebanov and Polyakov. We also find agreement with the critical O(N) vector model, when the bulk scalar field is subject to the alternative boundary condition such that its dual operator has classical dimension 2.Comment: 90 pages, 5 figures; v4, minor changes in the introductio

The finiteness of the four dimensional antisymmetric tensor field model in a curved background

A renormalizable rigid supersymmetry for the four dimensional antisymmetric tensor field model in a curved space-time background is constructed. A closed algebra between the BRS and the supersymmetry operators is only realizable if the vector parameter of the supersymmetry is a covariantly constant vector field. This also guarantees that the corresponding transformations lead to a genuine symmetry of the model. The proof of the ultraviolet finiteness to all orders of perturbation theory is performed in a pure algebraic manner by using the rigid supersymmetry.Comment: 23 page

Couplings of self-dual tensor multiplet in six dimensions

The (1,0) supersymmetry in six dimensions admits a tensor multiplet which contains a second-rank antisymmetric tensor field with a self-dual field strength and a dilaton. We describe the fully supersymmetric coupling of this multiplet to Yang-Mills multiplet, in the absence of supergravity. The self-duality equation for the tensor field involves a Chern-Simons modified field strength, the gauge fermions, and an arbitrary dimensionful parameter.Comment: 17 pages, latex, no figure