Holomorphic Effective Action of N=2 SYM Theory from Harmonic Superspace with Central Charges

Abstract

We compute the one-loop holomorphic effective action of the massless Cartan sector of N=2 SYM theory in the Coulomb branch, taking into account the contributions both from the charged hypermultiplets and off-diagonal components of the gauge superfield. We use the manifestly supersymmetric harmonic superfields diagram techniques adapted to N=2 supersymmetry with the central charges induced by Cartan generators. The (anti)holomorphic part proves to be proportional to the central charges and it has the generic form of Seiberg's action obtained by integrating U(1) R-anomaly. It vanishes for N=4 SYM theory, i.e. the coupled system of N=2 gauge superfield and hypermultiplet in the adjoint representation.