Challenges to Obtaining Results for Real QCD from SUSY QCD

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential and challenges of using supersymmetric QCD as a model to understand real QCD features like confinement and chiral symmetry breaking, especially when soft breakings are large.

Contribution

It highlights the difficulties in establishing confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in SUSY QCD with large soft breakings and discusses large N considerations.

Findings

Small soft breakings suggest features of real QCD

Large soft breakings pose challenges to demonstrating confinement

Phase transitions may occur if non-supersymmetric theory does not confine

Abstract

Recently there have been proposals to understand features of QCD such as confinement and chiral symmetry breaking by considering supersymmetric versions of the theory with various patterns of soft breaking. In this note we recall that with small soft breakings, SUSY QCD is suggestive of observed features of real QCD. But we outline some of the challenges to establishing these features of the theory with large soft breakings. It appears difficult to argue for confinement or chiral symmetry breaking; at best, one can say that {\it if} the non-supersymmetric theory does not confine and/or break chiral symmetry, phase transitions would appear inevitable as one increases the soft breakings. We also discuss, at large N, where confinement would imply chiral symmetry breaking, the challenges to establishing confinement.