nLab Wess-Zumino gauge

Idea

In supersymmetric field theory, Wess-Zumin gauge refers to a choice of gauge fixing of superfields which constrains their dependence on the odd coordinate functions (their super-components, e.g. Buchbinder & Kuzenko 1995, 3.4.3, Tong, §4.1) hence constrains auxiliary fields, but – in contrast to ordinary gauge choices like Lorenz gauge – does not constrain the physical gauge fields.

The authors Atick & Dhar 1987 p. 137 and Tsimpis 2004 suggests to think of Wess-Zumino gauge in supergravity and non-linear sigma-models as a choice of fermionic super-Riemann normal coordinates.

References

Named after Julius Wess and Bruno Zumino.

• Ioseph L. Buchbinder, Sergei M. Kuzenko, §3.4.3 in: Ideas and Methods of Supersymmetry and Supergravity – or: A Walk Through Superspace, IoP (1995) [doi:10.1201/9780367802530, inspire:1946734]

• David Tong: §4.1 in Lectures on Supersymmetry [webpage, full: pdf, ch4: pdf]

Unnderstanding of WZ gauge as a choice of fermionic Riemann normal coordinates:

• Joseph Atick, Avinash Dhar, §3 in: $\theta$-Expansion and light-cone gauge fixing in curved superspace $\sigma$-models, Nuclear Physics B 284 (1987) 131-145 [doi:10.1016/0550-3213(87)90029-0]

• Dimitrios Tsimpis, Curved 11D supergeometry, JHEP11 (2004) 087 [doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2004/11/087, arXiv:hep-th/0407244]