Superspace de Rham Complex and Relative Cohomology

Abstract: We investigate the super-de Rham complex of five-dimensional superforms with $N=1$ supersymmetry. By introducing a free supercommutative algebra of auxiliary variables, we show that this complex is equivalent to the Chevalley-Eilenberg complex of the translation supergroup with values in superfields. Each cocycle of this complex is defined by a Lorentz- and iso-spin-irreducible superfield subject to a set of constraints. Restricting to constant coefficients results in a subcomplex in which components of the cocycles are coboundaries while the constraints on the defining superfields span the cohomology. This reduces the computation of all of the superspace Bianchi identities to a single linear algebra problem the solution of which implies new features not present in the standard four-dimensional, $N=1$ complex. These include splitting/joining in the complex and the existence of cocycles that do not correspond to irreducible supermultiplets of closed differential forms. Interpreting the five-dimensional de Rham complex as arising from dimensional reduction from the six-dimensional complex, we find a second five-dimensional complex associated to the relative de Rham complex of the embedding of the latter in the former. This gives rise to a second source of closed differential forms previously attributed to the phenomenon called "Weyl triviality".