On the dualization of Born-Infeld theories

Understand

We construct a general Lagrangian, quadratic in the field strengths of $n$ abelian gauge fields, which interpolates between BI actions of n abelian vectors and actions, quadratic in the vector field-strengths, describing Maxwell fields coupled to non-dynamical scalars, in which the electric-magnetic duality symmetry is manifest.

• Depending on the choice of the parameters in the Lagrangian, the resulting BI actions may be inequivalent, exhibiting different duality groups.
• In particular we find, in our general setting, for different choices of the parameters, a ${\rm U}(n)$-invariant BI action, possibly related to the one in \cite{Aschieri:2008ns}, as well as the recently found $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric BI action \cite{Ferrara:2014oka}.