Enhanced Coset Symmetries and Higher Derivative Corrections

Abstract

After dimensional reduction to three dimensions, the lowest order effective actions for pure gravity, M-theory and the Bosonic string admit an enhanced symmetry group. In this paper we initiate study of how this enhancement is affected by the inclusion of higher derivative terms. In particular we show that the coefficients of the scalar fields associated to the Cartan subalgebra are given by weights of the enhanced symmetry group.