Oscillator construction of spectra of pp-wave superalgebras in eleven dimensions

After reviewing the oscillator realization of the symmetry superalgebra of the BMN matrix model on its maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background and the construction of its zero-mode spectrum, we study a large number of non-maximally supersymmetric pp-wave algebras in eleven dimensions which are obtained by various restrictions from the maximally supersymmetric case (BMN model). We also show how to obtain their zero-mode spectra, which we explicitly construct in some chosen examples. Except for some 'exotic' or degenerate special cases, we believe our study covers all possible interesting pp-wave superalgebras of this kind in eleven dimensions. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.