Finite-Temperature Supersymmetry: The Wess-Zumino Model

TL;DR

This paper explores how supersymmetry breaks at finite temperature in the Wess-Zumino model, demonstrating the existence of a phonino as the Goldstone fermion and unifying different theoretical perspectives.

Contribution

It unifies the understanding of supersymmetry breaking at finite temperature by showing the phonino's role as the Goldstone fermion in the Wess-Zumino model.

Findings

The phonino exists and contributes to Ward-Takahashi identities.

Supersymmetry is broken spontaneously at finite temperature.

The phonino acts as the Goldstone fermion.

Abstract

We investigate the breakdown of supersymmetry at finite temperature. While it has been proven that temperature always breaks supersymmetry, the nature of this breaking is less clear. On the one hand, a study of the Ward-Takahashi identities suggests a spontaneous breakdown of supersymmetry without the existence of a Goldstino, while on the other hand it has been shown that in any supersymmetric plasma there should exist a massless fermionic collective excitation, the phonino. Aim of this work is to unify these two approaches. For the Wess-Zumino model, it is shown that the phonino exists and contributes to the supersymmetric Ward-Takahashi identities in the right way displaying that supersymmetry is broken spontaneously with the phonino as the Goldstone fermion.