Higher-Dimensional Geometric Sigma Models

Abstract

Geometric $\sigma$-models have been defined as purely geometric theories of scalar fields coupled to gravity. By construction, these theories possess arbitrarily chosen vacuum solutions. Using this fact, one can build a Kaluza--Klein geometric $\sigma$-model by specifying the vacuum metric of the form $M^4\times B^d$. The obtained higher dimensional theory has vanishing cosmological constant but fails to give massless gauge fields after the dimensional reduction. In this paper, a modified geometric $\sigma$-model is suggested, which solves the above problem.