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arXiv · 1705.02685

Conformal Anomaly and Off-Shell Extensions of Gravity

Krzysztof A. Meissner·Hermann Nicolai
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Abstract

The gauge dependence of the conformal anomaly for spin 3/2 and spin 2 fields in non-conformal supergravities has been a long standing puzzle. In this Letter we argue that the `correct' gauge choice is the one that follows from requiring all terms that would imply a violation of the Wess-Zumino consistency condition to be absent in the counterterm, because otherwise the usual link between the anomaly and the one-loop divergence becomes invalid. Remarkably, the `good' choice of gauge is the one that confirms our previous result that a complete cancellation of conformal anomalies in D=4 can only be achieved for N-extended (Poincar\'e) supergravities with $N\geq 5$.

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Krzysztof A. Meissner, Hermann Nicolai. 2017-05-07. Conformal Anomaly and Off-Shell Extensions of Gravity. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.96.041701

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