Gauge Symmetry Breaking through the Hosotani Mechanism in Softly Broken Supersymmetric QCD

TL;DR

This paper investigates gauge symmetry breaking via the Hosotani mechanism in softly broken supersymmetric QCD, revealing vacuum structure differences based on N parity and exploring symmetry breaking patterns with added matter.

Contribution

It demonstrates how the Hosotani mechanism induces gauge symmetry breaking in supersymmetric QCD with various matter contents and supersymmetry breaking parameters.

Findings

Single SU(N) vacuum for even N

Doubly degenerate SU(N) vacua for odd N

Possible gauge symmetry breaking patterns like SU(3) to SU(2)×U(1)

Abstract

Gauge symmetry breaking through the Hosotani mechanism (the dynamics of nonintegrable phases) in softly broken supersymmetric QCD with $N_F^{fd}$ flavors is studied. For $N=$ even, there is a single SU(N) symmetric vacuum state, while for $N=$ odd, there is a doubly degenerate SU(N) symmetric vacuum state in the model. We also study generalized supersymmetric QCD by adding $N_F^{adj}$ numbers of massless adjoint matter. The gauge symmetry breaking pattern such as $SU(3)\to SU(2)\times U(1)$ is possible for appropriate choices of the matter content and values of the supersymmetry breaking parameter. The massless state of the adjoint Higgs scalar is also discussed in the models.