Can Hidden Gauginos Form Condensates?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation of gaugino condensates in a hidden sector as a mechanism for supersymmetry breaking, highlighting potential cosmological challenges due to exponential suppression of phase transitions.

Contribution

It provides an effective field theory analysis of gaugino condensate formation in a cosmological setting, emphasizing the impact of anomaly-induced potential barriers.

Findings

Large potential barriers suppress condensate formation

Transition to true vacuum may be exponentially rare

Cosmological inhomogeneity issues similar to inflationary models

Abstract

Supersymmetry breaking may be linked to the formation of gaugino condensates in a hidden sector. In this work, the process of formation of the condensate is examined in a cosmological context, using an effective field theory of the gaugino bilinear which provides a reasonable interpolation between the high- and low-temperature phases. The implementation of anomaly requirements generates a large potential barrier between the zero-condensate configuration and that of the true (SUSY-breaking) vacuum. As a consequence, the transition to bubbles of true vacuum may be subject to an enormous exponential suppression. This leads to the same difficulties with inhomogeneity of the universe which occurred in the original inflationary scenarios.