Motivated by a desire to find a useful 2d Lorentz-invariant reformulation of the AdS5 x S5 superstring world-sheet theory in terms of physical degrees of freedom we investigate a Pohlmeyer-reduced version of the corresponding supercoset sigma model. The Pohlmeyer reduction procedure involves several steps. Starting with a coset space string sigma model in the conformal gauge and writing the classical equations in terms of currents one can fix the residual conformal diffeomorphism symmetry and kappa-symmetry and introduce a new set of variables (related locally to currents but non-locally to the original string coordinate fields) so that the Virasoro constraints are automatically satisfied. The resulting gauge-fixed equations can be obtained from a Lagrangian of a non-abelian Toda type: a gauged WZW model with an integrable potential coupled also to a set of 2d fermionic fields. The final form of the Pohlmeyer-reduced theory can be found by integrating out the 2d gauge field of the gauged WZW model. Its small-fluctuation spectrum is that of 8 bosonic and 8 fermionic degrees of freedom with equal masses. We show that in the special case of the AdS2 x S2 superstring model the reduced theory is supersymmetric: it is equivalent to the (2,2) supersymmetric extension of the sine-Gordon model.

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