On multifield Born and Born-Infeld theories and their non-Abelian generalizations

Starting from a recently proposed linear formulation in terms of auxiliary fields, we study n-field generalizations of Born and Born-Infeld theories. In this description the Lagrangian is quadratic in the vector field strengths and the symmetry properties (including the characteristic self-duality) of the corresponding non-linear theory are manifest as on-shell duality symmetries and depend on the choice of the (homogeneous) manifold spanned by the auxiliary scalar fields and the symplectic frame. By suitably choosing these defining properties of the quadratic Lagrangian, we are able to reproduce some known multi-field Born-Infeld theories and to derive new non-linear models, such as the n-field Born theory. We also discuss non-Abelian generalizations of these theories obtained by choosing the vector fields in the adjoint representation of an off-shell compact global symmetry group K and replacing them by non-Abelian, K-covariant field strengths, thus promoting K to a gauge group.