2008/06/30 by Keith R. Dienes, Brooks Thomas · 19 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Degenerate energy levels #Epistemology #Field (mathematics) #Mathematics #Metastability #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Phenomenology (philosophy) #Philosophy #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum mechanics #Superpotential #Supersymmetry #Supersymmetry breaking #Theoretical physics #Vacuum state #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.106011
published in Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields 78(10) (American Physical Society) · 13 pages, ReVTeX, 3 figures, 2 tables
arxiv created 2008/10/15 · openalex publication_date 2008/11/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
It is becoming increasingly clear that metastable vacua may play a prominent role in supersymmetry breaking. To date, however, this idea has been realized only in models where nonperturbative dynamics complicates the analysis of metastability. In this paper, we present a simple construction in which metastable vacua occur classically, i.e., at tree level, and in which supersymmetry breaking is sourced by both D terms and F terms. All relevant dynamics is perturbative, and hence calculations of vacuum energies and lifetimes can be performed explicitly. Moreover, we find that our construction can even give rise to multiple nonsupersymmetric vacua which are degenerate. The nontrivial vacuum structure of such models therefore suggests that they can provide a rich arena for future studies of vacuum metastability in supersymmetric field theories. Our results may also have important consequences for Z^\ensuremath' phenomenology and the string landscape.