Covariant action and equations of motion for the eleven dimensional multiple M0-brane system.

We study the properties of the covariant supersymmetric and ?-symmetric action for a system of N nearly coincident M0-branes (mM0 system) in flat 11-dimensional (11D) superspace and obtain supersymmetric equations for this dynamical system. Although a single M0-brane is the massless 11D superparticle, center-of-energy motion of the mM0 system is characterized by a non-negative constant mass M constructed from the matrix fields describing the relative motion of mM0 constituents. We show that a bosonic solution of the mM0 equations can be supersymmetric iff this effective mass vanishes, M²=0, and that all the supersymmetric bosonic solutions preserve just one half of the 11D supersymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]