Non Supersymmetric Metastable Vacua in N=2 SYM Softly Broken to N=1

TL;DR

This paper identifies non-supersymmetric metastable vacua in four-dimensional N=2 gauge theories softly broken to N=1, analyzing their spectrum, lifetime, and embedding in UV complete theories, with extensions to larger gauge groups.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of metastable vacua in N=2 gauge theories broken to N=1, including analysis of their properties and generalization to larger gauge groups with flavors.

Findings

Metastable vacua found in SU(2) gauge theory without flavors.

Potential analysis shows metastability in larger gauge theories.

Potential increases away from specific submanifolds, enabling metastable vacua construction.

Abstract

We find non-supersymmetric metastable vacua in four dimensional N=2 gauge theories softly broken to N=1 by a superpotential term. First we study the simplest case, namely the SU(2) gauge theory without flavors. We study the spectrum and lifetime of the metastable vacuum and possible embeddings of the model in UV complete theories. Then we consider larger gauge group theories with flavors. We show that when we softly break them to N=1, the potential induced on specific submanifolds of their moduli space is identical to the potential in lower rank gauge theories. Then we show that the potential increases when we move away from this submanifold, allowing us to construct metastable vacua on them in the theories that can be reduced to the SU(2) case.