Supersymmetry Breaking with Zero Vacuum Energy in M-Theory Flux Compactifications

TL;DR

This paper proposes a mechanism in heterotic M-theory flux compactifications that enables supersymmetry breaking with zero vacuum energy by using warp-factor suppression to balance flux and condensate effects, overcoming quantization obstructions.

Contribution

It introduces a warp-factor suppression mechanism in heterotic M-theory that allows for supersymmetry breaking with zero vacuum energy, resolving flux quantization issues.

Findings

Warp-factor suppresses flux relative to condensate

Superpotential derivation free of delta-function ambiguities

Mechanism enables stable zero-energy supersymmetry breaking

Abstract

An attractive mechanism to break supersymmetry in vacua with zero vacuum energy arose in E_8 x E_8 heterotic models with hidden sector gaugino condensate. An H-flux balances the exponentially small condensate on shell and fixes the complex structure moduli. At quantum level this balancing is, however, obstructed by the quantization of the H-flux. We show that the warped flux compactification background in heterotic M-theory can solve this problem through a warp-factor suppression of the integer flux relative to the condensate. We discuss the suppression mechanism both in the M-theory and the 4-dimensional effective theory and provide a derivation of the condensate's superpotential which is free of delta-function squared ambiguities.