Interpolating between 4d $\mathcal{N}= 1$ SCFT supercurrent multiplet anomalies

Abstract

A renormalized SCFT can be coupled to a number of background off-shell supergravity multiplets, defining different current multiplets and superconformal anomalies. We focus on the relation between the conformal and Ferrara-Zumino multiplets of generic $\mathcal{N}= 1$ SCFTs in four dimensions, defined respectively by $\mathcal{N}= 1$ conformal and old-minimal supergravity. We show that the conformal super-gravity partition function, when lifted to a functional of the old-minimal background fields through a suitable Wess-Zumino action, is related to the old-minimal partition function by a local counterterm that we determine explicitly in components. This counterterm interpolates between two different old-minimal supergravity schemes with different superconformal anomalies. Part of the counterterm depends on the old-minimal auxiliary scalar and provides the explicit component form of the super-space counterterm constructed in [1]. However, the full counterterm that interpolates between the two multiplets contains additional terms, independent of the old-minimal auxiliary scalar, which are not present in this superspace counterterm. These additional terms play a key role in the comparison of physical observables between the two multiplets.