Moduli (physics)

In quantum field theory, the term moduli (sg.: modulus; more properly moduli fields) is sometimes used to refer to scalar fields whose potential energy function has continuous families of global minima. Such potential functions frequently occur in supersymmetric systems. The term "modulus" is borrowed from mathematics (or more specifically, moduli space is borrowed from algebraic geometry), where it is used synonymously with "parameter". The word moduli (Moduln in German) first appeared in 1857 in Bernhard Riemann's celebrated paper "Theorie der Abel'schen Functionen".^[1]