On the F-term problem and quintessence supersymmetry breaking

TL;DR

This paper investigates the impact of kinetic mixings on moduli masses in string-inspired quintessence models, proposes supergravity toy models to incorporate these effects, and introduces a new invariant to mediate supersymmetry breaking.

Contribution

It identifies a generic kinetic mixing contribution to moduli masses and proposes a new supersymmetric invariant to mediate supersymmetry breaking in supergravity models.

Findings

Kinetic mixings affect effective moduli masses.

Standard supergravity lacks a term for supersymmetry breaking mediation.

A new 2-derivative invariant is proposed for supersymmetry breaking.

Abstract

Inspired by the stringy quintessence F-term problem we highlight a generic contribution to the effective moduli masses that arises due to kinetic mixings between the moduli and the quintessence sector. We then proceed to discuss few supergravity toy models that accommodate such effect, and point out possible shortcomings. Interestingly, in the standard 2-derivative supergravity action there is no term to mediate the supersymmetry breaking from the kinetic quintessence sector to the gaugini and generate Majorana masses. Therefore we also propose a 2-derivative supersymmetric invariant that plays exactly this role.