Hyper-Kähler metrics and harmonic superspace (Q1069482)

The most general unconstrained superfield action for self-interacting \(N=2\) matter hypermultiplets in analytic \(N=2\) superspace is argued to produce a most general \(N=2\) hyper-Kähler \(\sigma\)-model after eliminating an infinite set of auxiliary fields. This suggests a new possibility of classifying hyper-Kähler metrics according to the \(N=2\) analytic superfield self-interactions and provides an effective tool to compute these metrics explicitly. As the simplest example the U(2)- invariant quartic self-coupling of a single q-hypermultiplet is analyzed and is shown to yield the familiar Taub-NUT metric. To see the geometric pattern directly in terms of \(N=2\) superfields we introduce a new on- shell representation of q-hypermultiplets in \(N=2\) harmonic superspace similar to the \(\tau\)-description of \(N=2\) gauge theories. For the U(2)- example this formulation is checked to coincide with that by Sierra and Townsend.