On the Possibility of Demonstrating Confinement in Non-Supersymmetric Theories by Deforming Confining Supersymmetric Theories

TL;DR

This paper reviews evidence that supersymmetric QCD confines and explores the possibility of demonstrating confinement in non-supersymmetric theories by deforming supersymmetric models, with implications for understanding real QCD.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of confinement in supersymmetric QCD and discusses how these results might extend to non-supersymmetric theories like real QCD through deformations.

Findings

Supersymmetric QCD with N colors and Nf ≥ 0 confines.

Confinement persists under small soft breakings and supersymmetric masses.

Naive and general arguments suggest confinement may also hold in non-supersymmetric QCD.

Abstract

We review arguments that supersymmetric QCD with $N$ colors and $N_f \ge 0$ massive quarks confines. We explain that this remains the case for small soft breakings and small supersymmetric masses for any quarks. These results continue to hold at large $N$. We then consider these theories with large soft breakings -- real QCD -- describing the problem in terms of the direct computation of the linear potential between a heavy quark and antiquark. We provide naive arguments that confinement persists, and then give a more general treatment. The features required for the naive arguments are generally believed to hold at large $N$. Extending them to finite $N$ requires only mild assumptions.