Carrollian limit of NS-NS and Heterotic Supergravity

Abstract

We construct the Carrollian limit of NS--NS and heterotic supergravity through an ultra-relativistic expansion of the fields. An appropriate scaling of the dilaton renders the measure finite and compensates the divergences arising from the NS-NS supergravity Lagrangian, giving a finite action as $w\rightarrow\infty$. We then extend the construction to heterotic supergravity (neglecting fermions) by incorporating the non-Abelian gauge field together with the Green--Schwarz (GS) mechanism. The resulting theory contains a finite gauge sector consistently coupled to gravity, and the GS mechanism for the Carrollian 1-form field can be trivialized imposing field redefinitions. Then, we investigate the Carrollian equations of motion by both expanding the relativistic equations and deriving them from a variational principle. We also show that the leading $α'$-corrected $\hat{\rm Riem}^2$ contribution remains finite under a rescaling of the string parameter $α'\rightarrow \frac{α'_c}{w^2}$, opening further research towards the full four-derivative effective action. Finally, we discuss the potential connection with the worldsheet formalism of the Carrollian string theory.