Real forms of very extended Kac-Moody algebras and theories with eight supersymmetries

Abstract

We consider all theories with eight supersymmetries whose reduction to three dimensions gives rise to scalars that parametrise symmetric manifolds. We conjecture that these theories are non-linear realisations of very-extended Kac-Moody algebras for suitable choices of real forms. We show for the most interesting cases that the bosonic sector of the supersymmetric theory is precisely reproduced by the corresponding non-linear realisation.