SUSY breaking by a metastable ground state: Why the early Universe preferred the non-supersymmetric vacuum

TL;DR

The paper demonstrates that in cosmological settings, thermal effects naturally favor the universe settling into a metastable, non-supersymmetric vacuum, explaining the observed SUSY breaking in our universe.

Contribution

It shows that thermal dynamics in ISS models lead to the universe preferring metastable SUSY-breaking vacua over supersymmetric ones.

Findings

Thermal effects drive the universe to metastable vacua.

ISS models' metastable vacua are favored due to fewer light degrees of freedom.

Metastable SUSY breaking is comparable to dynamical SUSY breaking scenarios.

Abstract

Supersymmetry breaking in a metastable vacuum is re-examined in a cosmological context. It is shown that thermal effects generically drive the Universe to the metastable minimum even if it begins in the supersymmetry-preserving one. This is a generic feature of the ISS models of metastable supersymmetry breaking due to the fact that SUSY preserving vacua contain fewer light degrees of freedom than the metastable ground state at the origin. These models of metastable SUSY breaking are thus placed on an equal footing with the more usual dynamical SUSY breaking scenarios.