Unconstrained N=2 matter, Yang-Mills and supergravity theories in harmonic superspace

A new approach to N=2 supersymmetry based on the concept of harmonic superspace is proposed and is used to give an unconstrained superfield geometric description of N=2 super Yang-Mills and supergravity theories as well as of matter N=2 hypermultiplets. The harmonic N=2 superspace has an independent coordinates, in addition to the usual ones, the isospinor harmonics u i +or- on the sphere SU(2)/U(1). The role of u i +or- is to relate the SU(2) group realised on the component fields to a U(1) group acting on the relevant superfields. Their introduction makes it possible to SU(2)-covariantise the notion of Grassmann analyticity. Crucial for the construction is the existence of an analytic subspace of the general harmonic N=2 superspace. The hypermultiplet superfields and the true prepotentials (pre-prepotentials) of N=2 super Yang-Mills and supergravity are unconstrained superfunctions over this analytic subspace. The pre-prepotentials have a clear geometric interpretation as gauge connections with respect to the internal SU(2)/U(1) directions. A radically new feature arises: the number of gauge and auxiliary degrees of freedom becomes infinite while the number of physical degrees of freedom remains finite. Other new results are the massive N=2 Yang-Mills theory and various off-shell self-interactions of hypermultiplets. The propagators for matter and Yang-Mills superfields are given.