Non-Abelian gauged supergravities as double copies

Abstract

Scattering amplitudes have the potential to provide new insights to the study of supergravity theories with gauged R-symmetry and Minkowski vacua. Such gaugings break supersymmetry spontaneously, either partly or completely. In this paper, we develop a framework for double-copy constructions of Abelian and non-Abelian gaugings of N=8 supergravity with these properties. They are generally obtained as the double copy of a spontaneously-broken (possibly supersymmeric) gauge theory and a theory with explicitly-broken supersymmetry. We first identify purely-adjoint deformations of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory that preserve the duality between color and kinematics. A combination of Higgsing and orbifolding yields the needed duality-satisfying gauge-theory factors with multiple matter representations. We present three explicit examples. Two are Cremmer-Scherk-Schwarz gaugings with unbroken N=6,4 supersymmetry and U(1) gauge group. The third has unbroken N=4 supersymmetry and SU(2)xU(1) gauge group. We also discuss examples in which the double-copy method gives theories with explicitly-broken supersymmetry.