Supersymmetric mechanics in superspace

Abstract

These lectures were given at Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati in the month of March 2005. The main idea was to provide our young colleagues, who joined us in our attempts to understand the structure of N-extended supersymmetric one-dimensional systems, with short descriptions of the methods and techniques we use. This was reflected in the choice of material and in the style of presentation. We base our treatment mainly on the superfield point of view. Moreover, we prefer to deal with N = 4 and N = 8 superfields. At present, there exists an extensive literature on the component approach to extended supersymmetric theories in d = 1 while the manifestly supersymmetric formulation in terms of properly constrained superfields is much less known. Nevertheless, we believe that just such formulations are preferable. © Springer 2006.