General F-Term Gauge Mediation

TL;DR

This paper reviews a model-independent formalism of gauge mediation, showing how hidden sector effects influence SUSY breaking and demonstrating that classic gauge mediation predictions are recovered under certain conditions.

Contribution

It clarifies how two-point correlators of gauge current superfields affect low-energy SUSY breaking and specializes to a regime where traditional gauge mediation results are obtained.

Findings

Correlators determine soft SUSY-breaking terms.

Classic gauge mediation predictions are recovered for small F/m^2.

The formalism provides a unified view of gauge mediation effects.

Abstract

In a model-independent formalism of gauge mediation, Meade, Seiberg, and Shih have shown that hidden sector effects are captured by two-point correlation functions of the gauge current superfields and that, generically, many of the characteristic features of gauge mediated SUSY breaking do not survive. We review the general story, particularly the way that the correlators enter the low-energy effective action and give rise to soft-breaking terms. We then specialize to the case where there is a small parameter, F/m^2, where m is the mass scale characterizing the hidden sector, and F is the strength of the SUSY breaking. To leading nontrivial order in this small parameter, we show that many of the classic predictions of gauge mediated SUSY breaking are recovered.