A Way to break supersymmetry

Mar, 1995
19 pages
e-Print:
Report number:
  • CPTH-R349-0395,
  • CPTH-RR349-0395,
  • CPTH-RR.349.0395

Citations per year

19952002200920162023010203040
Abstract:
I study the spontaneous breakdown of supersymmetry when higher-dimensional Yang-Mills or the type-I SO(32)SO(32) string theory are compactified on magnetized tori. Because of the universal gyromagnetic ratio g=2g=2, the splittings of all multiplets are given by the product of charge times internal helicity operators. As a result such compactifications have two remarkable and robust features: {\it (a)} they can reconcile {\it chirality} with {\it extended} low-energy supersymmetry in the limit of large tori, and {\it (b)} they can trigger gauge-symmetry breaking, via Nielsen-Olesen instabilities, at a scale tied classically to mSUSYm_{SUSY}. I exhibit a compactification of the SO(32)SO(32) superstring, in which magnetic fields break spontaneously N=4N=4 supersymmetry, produce the standard-model gauge group with three chiral families of quarks and leptons, and trigger electroweak symmetry breaking. I discuss supertrace relations and the ensuing ultraviolet softness. As with other known mechanisms of supersymmetry breaking, the one proposed here faces two open problems: the threat to perturbative calculability in the decompactification limit, and the problem of gravitational stability and in particular of the cosmological constant. I explain, however, why a good classical description of the vacuum may require small tadpoles for the dilaton, moduli and metric.
Note:
  • 20 pages, Latex file
  • string model: SO(32)
  • supersymmetry: spontaneously broken
  • gauge field theory: Yang-Mills
  • dimension: >4
  • compactification: torus
  • magnetic field
  • group theory: representation
  • bibliography