BPS preons in supergravity and higher spin theories. An overview from the hill of twistor appraoch

Abstract

We review briefly the notion of BPS preons, first introduced in 11-dimensional context as hypothetical constituents of M-theory, in its generalization to arbitrary dimensions and emphasizing the relation with twistor approach. In particular, the use of a 'twistor-like' definition of BPS preon (almost) allows us to remove supersymmetry arguments from the discussion of the relation of the preons with higher spin theories and also of the treatment of BPS preons as constituents. We turn to the supersymmetry in the second part of this contribution, where we complete the algebraic discussion with supersymmetric arguments based on the M-algebra (generalized Poincare superalgebra), discuss the possible generalization of BPS preons related to the osp(1|n) (generalized AdS) superalgebra, review a twistor-like kappa-symmetric superparticle in tensorial superspace, which provides a point-like dynamical model for BPS preon, and the role of BPS preons in the analysis of supergravity solutions. Finally we describe resent results on the concise superfield description of the higher spin field equations and on superfield supergravity in tensorial superspaces.