Membranes and gauged supergravity

In 1980, Antonio Aurilia, Hermann Nicolai and I constructed an N=8 supergravity with a positive exponential potential for one of the 70 scalar fields by adapting the dimensional reduction of 11D supergravity to allow for a non-zero 4-form field-strength in 4D. This model, now viewed as a particular gauged maximal supergravity, had little influence at the time because it does not have a maximally-symmetric vacuum. However, as shown here, it does have a domain-wall solution, which lifts to the M2-brane solution of D=11 supergravity. The possibility of a similar construction for other branes of M-theory is also explored.