Is N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory Self-Dual?

[metroplex021]

Hi folks,

I am looking a bit at the phenomenon of S-duality (as a bit of an amateur) and looking at the literature I am getting mixed messages concerning whether or not N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories are in general self-dual. Does anyone happen to know anything about this?!

I'd appreciate any views or leads very much!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I'm sorry you are not finding help at the moment. Is there any additional information you can share with us?

 

[metroplex021]

I just received this in an email from a rather famous physicist whose name I'd rather not mention.

"The classic Montonen-Olive duality of N=4 super-Yang Mills illustrates both self- and non-self duality. For gauge group SU(n) or SO(2n) the dual theory is the same, but the paper

Gauge Theories and Magnetic Charge
P. Goddard (Cambridge U.), J. Nuyts (UMH, Mons), David I. Olive (CERN & Bohr Inst.). Dec 1976. 41 pp.
Published in Nucl.Phys. B125 (1977) 1

showed that SO(2n+1) is dual to Sp(2n) and vice versa. The global symmetries and SUSY have to be the same on both sides, but the fields and gauge symmetries differ. ... As one goes to less SUSY, there is more freedom and non-self-duality is common."

Hope that's of interest to others!