Supersymmetric Aether

TL;DR

This paper constructs a supersymmetric extension of a dynamical aether model that breaks Lorentz invariance but preserves supersymmetry, revealing rich vacuum structures and implications for gravity theories.

Contribution

It introduces a novel supersymmetric aether model with spontaneous symmetry breaking and analyzes its vacuum structure and mass spectrum.

Findings

Existence of stable vacua with broken spatial isotropy

Supersymmetry breaking gives masses to fermionic and bosonic partners

Implications for coupling to supergravity and Horava gravity

Abstract

It has been suggested by Groot Nibbelink and Pospelov that Lorentz invariance can be an emergent symmetry of low-energy physics provided the theory enjoys a non-relativistic version of supersymmetry. We construct a model that realizes the latter symmetry dynamically: it breaks Lorentz invariance but leaves the supersymmetry generators intact. The model is a supersymmetric extension of the dynamical aether theory of Jacobson and Mattingly. It shows rich dynamics and possesses a family of inequivalent vacua realizing different symmetry breaking patterns. In particular, we find stable vacua that break spontaneously spatial isotropy. Supersymmetry breaking terms give masses to fermionic and bosonic partners of the aether field. We comment on the coupling of the model to supergravity and on the implications for Horava gravity.