Unified non-metric (1,0) tensor-Einstein supergravity theories and (4,0) supergravity in six dimensions

Abstract

The ultrashort unitary (4,0) supermultiplet of 6d superconformal algebra OSp(8*|8) reduces to the CPT-self conjugate supermultiplet of 4d superconformal algebra SU(2,2|8) that represents the fields of maximal N=8 supergravity. The graviton in the (4,0) multiplet is described by a mixed tensor gauge field which can not be identified with the standard metric in 6d. Furthermore the (4,0) supermultiplet can be obtained as a double copy of (2,0) conformal supermultiplet whose interacting theories are non-Lagrangian. It had been suggested that an interacting non-metric (4,0) supergravity theory might describe the strongly coupled phase of 5d maximal supergravity. In this paper we study the implications of the existence of an interacting non-metric (4,0) supergravity in 6d. The (4,0) theory can be truncated to non-metric (1,0) supergravity coupled to 5,8 and 14 self-dual tensor multiplets that reduce to three of the unified magical supergravity theories in d=5. This implies that the three infinite families of unified N=2 , 5d Maxwell-Einstein supergravity theories (MESGTs) plus two sporadic ones must have uplifts to unified non-metric (1,0) tensor Einstein supergravity theories in d=6. These theories have non-compact global symmetry groups under which all the self-dual tensor fields including the gravitensor transform irreducibly. Four of these theories are uplifts of the magical supergravity theories whose scalar manifolds are symmetric spaces. The scalar manifolds of the other unified theories are not homogeneous spaces. We also discuss the exceptional field theoretic formulations of non-metric unified $(1,0)$ tensor-Einstein supergravity theories and conclude with speculations concerning the existence of higher dimensional non-metric supergravity theories that reduce to the $(4,0)$ theory in $d=6$.