Dualisation of Dualities, II: Twisted self-duality of doubled fields and superdualities

Abstract

We introduce a doubled formalism for the bosonic sector of the maximal supergravities, in which a Hodge dual potential is introduced for each bosonic field (except for the metric). The equations of motion can then be formulated as a twisted self-duality condition on the total field strength \G, which takes its values in a Lie superalgebra. This doubling is invariant under dualisations; it allows a unification of the gauge symmetries of all degrees, including the usual U-dualities that have degree zero. These ``superdualities'' encompass the dualities for all choices of polarisation (i.e. the choices between fields and their duals). All gauge symmetries appear as subgroups of finite-dimensional supergroups, with Grassmann coefficients in the differential algebra of the spacetime manifold.