TY  - JOUR
PB  - SciPost Foundation
DO  - 10.21468/SciPostPhys.15.5.198
TI  - Stress Tensor flows, birefringence in non-linear electrodynamics and supersymmetry
PY  - 2023/11/21
UR  - https://scipost.org/SciPostPhys.15.5.198
JF  - SciPost Physics
JA  - SciPost Phys.
VL  - 15
IS  - 5
SP  - 198
A1  - Ferko, Christian
AU  - Smith, Liam
AU  - Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli, Gabriele
AB  - We identify the unique stress tensor deformation which preserves zero-birefringence conditions in non-linear electrodynamics, which is a $4d$ version of the $T\overline{T}$ operator. We study the flows driven by this operator in the three Lagrangian theories without birefringence - Born-Infeld, Plebanski, and reverse Born-Infeld - all of which admit ModMax-like generalizations using a root-$T\overline{T}$-like flow that we analyse in our paper. We demonstrate one way of making this root-$T\overline{T}$-like flow manifestly supersymmetric by writing the deforming operator in $\mathcal{N} = 1$ superspace and exhibit two examples of superspace flows. We present scalar analogues in $d = 2$ with similar properties as these theories of electrodynamics in $d = 4$. Surprisingly, the Plebanski-type theories are fixed points of the classical $T\overline{T}$-like flows, while the Born-Infeld-type examples satisfy new flow equations driven by relevant operators constructed from the stress tensor. Finally, we prove that any theory obtained from a classical stress-tensor-squared deformation of a conformal field theory gives rise to a related "subtracted" theory for which the stress-tensor-squared operator is a constant.
ER  -

@Article{10.21468/SciPostPhys.15.5.198,
	title={{Stress Tensor flows, birefringence in non-linear electrodynamics and supersymmetry}},
	author={Christian Ferko and Liam Smith and Gabriele Tartaglino-Mazzucchelli},
	journal={SciPost Phys.},
	volume={15},
	pages={198},
	year={2023},
	publisher={SciPost},
	doi={10.21468/SciPostPhys.15.5.198},
	url={https://scipost.org/10.21468/SciPostPhys.15.5.198},
}