Inverse Higgs effect in nonlinear realizations

In theories with nonlinearly realised symmetry it is possible in a number of cases to eliminate some initial Goldstone and gauge fields by means of putting appropriate Cartan forms equal to zero. This is called the inverse Higgs phenomenon. We give a general treatment of the inverse Higgs phenomenon for gauge and space-time symmetries and consider four instructive examples which are the elimination of unessential gauge fields in chiral symmetry and in non-linearly realised supersymmetry and also the elimination of unessential Goldstone fields in the spontaneously broken conformal and projective symmetries.