Vacuum Structure and Flavor Symmetry Breaking in Supersymmetric SO(n_c) Gauge Theories

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the vacuum structure and phases of N=1 supersymmetric SO(n_c) gauge theories derived from N=2 SQCD with a mass term, revealing two distinct vacua groups with different symmetry breaking and confinement properties.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the vacuum structure and phase transitions in supersymmetric SO(n_c) gauge theories, including dual descriptions and monopole multiplets, extending understanding of their nonperturbative dynamics.

Findings

Identification of two vacuum groups with distinct symmetry properties.

Demonstration of phase descriptions from weak to strong coupling regimes.

Construction of monopole flavor multiplets consistent with vacuum multiplicity.

Abstract

We determine the vacuum structure and phases of N=1 theories obtained via a mass \mu for the adjoint chiral superfield in N=2, SO(n_c) SQCD. For large number of flavors these theories have two groups of vacua. The first exhibits dynamical breaking of flavor symmetry \USp(2n_f) \to U(n_f) and arises as a relevant deformation of a non-trivial superconformal theory. These are in the confined phase. The second group, in an IR-free phase with unbroken flavor symmetry, is produced from a Coulomb branch singularity with Seiberg's dual gauge symmetry. In the large-\mu regime both groups of vacua are well-described by dual quarks and mesons, and dynamical symmetry breaking in the first group occurs via meson condensation. We follow the description of these vacua from weak to strong coupling and demonstrate a nontrivial agreement between the phases and the number of vacua in the two regimes. We construct the semiclassical monopole flavor multiplets and argue that their multiplicity is consistent with the number of N=1 vacua.