Fractionally Charged Particles and Supersymmetry Breaking in 4D Strings

TL;DR

This paper explores how light fractional charge particles in 4D string theories could be confined into integral charges and how their associated gauge interactions might simultaneously break supersymmetry at TeV scales, affecting particle spectra and unification.

Contribution

It proposes a novel scenario where a hidden gauge sector both confines fractional charges and induces supersymmetry breaking, with implications for particle masses and unification.

Findings

Fractional charges can be confined into integral charges by hidden gauge groups.

Supersymmetry breaking can occur at TeV scales via gaugino and scalar condensation.

The model is consistent with coupling constant unification at the string scale.

Abstract

Four-dimensional string theories predict in general the existence of light exotic particles with fractional electric charges. Such particles could escape present observations if they are confined by a gauge group of the "hidden" sector into integrally charged states. It is conceivable that the same gauge group is also responsible for dynamical supersymmetry breaking, via gaugino and scalar condensation. The communication of the breaking to the observable sector is now mediated by ordinary gauge interactions, implying that the confining scale can be in the TeV-region. We study the main phenomenological implications of this possibility. In particular, we analyze the pattern of supersymmetry breaking and the mass-spectrum of the sparticles. We also show that this scenario can be consistent with the unification of all coupling constants at the string scale.