Supersymmetry Breaking in 4D Supergravity and String Theory

by Dr Paul Smyth (Hamburg Univ.)

Thursday 25 Nov 2010, 16:00 → 17:30 Europe/Brussels

E/3rd floor-E.349 - Seminar room (E.349) (Marc de Hemptinne (chemin du Cyclotron, 2, Louvain-la-Neuve))

Most particle physics models derived from string theory suffer from two major problems: a lack of chiral fermions and a large number of massless scalar fields in the low-energy spectrum. The first problem arises because many string models have extended supersymmetry i.e. they lead to theories with N=2 supersymmetry, which do not have chiral fermions. Working entirely with four-dimensional field theory, I will show how we can determine if such string models can produce more realistic vacua with only N=1 supersymmetry through spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. I will then describe the distinctive features of the N=1 supersymmetric field theories in these vacua. This will turn out to provide a solution to the second problem above for free - removing the troublesome massless scalars.