Quantum phase transitions in cascading gauge theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum phase structure of a supersymmetric cascading gauge theory on a compact space, revealing phase transitions, stability conditions, and cosmological implications related to chiral symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of phase transitions and stability in cascading gauge theories on R x S^3, including the identification of critical scales and their physical consequences.

Findings

First-order chiral symmetry breaking transition at mu_cSB

Perturbative instability below mu_c

Potential to source inflation in a closed universe

Abstract

We study a ground state of N=1 supersymmetric SU(K+P) x SU(K) cascading gauge theory of Klebanov et.al [1,2] on R x S^3 at zero temperature. A radius of S^3 sets a compactification scale mu. An interplay between mu and the strong coupling scale Lambda of the theory leads to an interesting pattern of quantum phases of the system. For mu > mu_cSB=1.240467(8)Lambda the ground state of the theory is chirally symmetric. At mu=mu_cSB the theory undergoes the first-order transition to a phase with spontaneous breaking of the chiral symmetry. We further demonstrate that the chirally symmetric ground state of cascading gauge theory becomes perturbatively unstable at scales below mu_c=0.950634(5)mu_cSB. Finally, we point out that for mu < 1.486402(5)Lambda the stress-energy tensor of cascading gauge theory can source inflation of a closed Universe.