Twistors and Aspects of Integrability of self-dual SYM Theory

With the help of the Penrose-Ward transform, which relates certain holomorphic vector bundles over the supertwistor space to the equations of motion of self-dual SYM theory in four dimensions, we construct hidden infinite-dimensional symmetries of the theory. We also present a new and shorter proof (cf. hep-th/0412163) of the relation between certain deformation algebras and hidden symmetry algebras. This article is based on a talk given by the author at the Workshop on Supersymmetries and Quantum Symmetries 2005 at the BLTP in Dubna, Russia.Comment: 1+7 pages, based on a talk given at the International Workshop "Supersymmetries and Quantum Symmetries" (SQS'05), Dubna, July 27-31 2005; to appear in the proceeding

The affine preservers of non-singular matrices

When K is an arbitrary field, we study the affine automorphisms of M_n(K) that stabilize GL_n(K). Using a theorem of Dieudonn\'e on maximal affine subspaces of singular matrices, this is easily reduced to the known case of linear preservers when n>2 or #K>2. We include a short new proof of the more general Flanders' theorem for affine subspaces of M_{p,q}(K) with bounded rank. We also find that the group of affine transformations of M_2(F_2) that stabilize GL_2(F_2) does not consist solely of linear maps. Using the theory of quadratic forms over F_2, we construct explicit isomorphisms between it, the symplectic group Sp_4(F_2) and the symmetric group S_6.Comment: 13 pages, very minor corrections from the first versio

Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory as Higher Chern-Simons Theory

We observe that the string field theory actions for the topological sigma models describe higher or categorified Chern-Simons theories. These theories yield dynamical equations for connective structures on higher principal bundles. As a special case, we consider holomorphic higher Chern-Simons theory on the ambitwistor space of four-dimensional space-time. In particular, we propose a higher ambitwistor space action functional for maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.Comment: v2: 25 pages, conventions improved, typos fixed, published versio