On the Thermal History of Calculable Gauge Mediation

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermal evolution of gauge mediation models, revealing that certain models can naturally evolve to the desired vacuum despite the presence of competing vacua at high temperatures.

Contribution

It analyzes the thermal history of R-symmetric and non-R-symmetric gauge mediation models, highlighting conditions under which the desired vacuum is favored.

Findings

Some models prefer the supersymmetric vacuum at high temperature.

A class of models has a local minimum far from the origin at high temperature.

The phase transition to the supersymmetric vacuum is parametrically suppressed.

Abstract

Many messenger models with realistic gaugino masses are based on meta-stable vacua. In this work we study the thermal history of some of these models. Analyzing R-symmetric models, we point out that while some of the known messenger models clearly prefer the supersymmetric vacuum, there is a vast class of models where the answer depends on the initial conditions. Along with the vacuum at the origin, the high temperature thermal potential also possesses a local minimum far away from the origin. This vacuum has no analog at zero temperature. The first order phase transition from this vacuum into the supersymmetric vacuum is parametrically suppressed, and the theory, starting from that vacuum, is likely to evolve to the desired gauge-mediation vacuum. We also comment on the thermal evolution of models without R-symmetry.