Some Pathways in non-Linear Supersymmetry: Special Geometry Born-Infeld's, Cosmology and dualities

Abstract

This review is devoted to some aspects of non-linear Supersymmetry in four dimensions that can be efficiently described via nilpotent superfields, in both rigid and curved Superspace. Our focus is mainly on the partial breaking of rigid $N=2$ Supersymmetry and on a class of generalized Born-Infeld systems that originate from Special Geometry and on some prototype cosmological models, starting from the Supergravity embedding of Starobinsky inflation. However, as an aside we also review briefly some interesting two-field extensions of the Born-Infeld Lagrangian whose field equations enjoy extended duality symmetries.