Domain Wall Junctions are 1/4-BPS States

TL;DR

This paper investigates 1/4-BPS domain wall junctions in N=1 supersymmetric theories, deriving bounds, constructing explicit solutions, and discussing their significance in SUSY Yang-Mills and M-theory contexts.

Contribution

It provides the first explicit construction and analysis of 1/4-BPS domain wall junction solutions in four-dimensional N=1 SUSY theories.

Findings

Existence of solutions preserving one quarter of supersymmetry.

Derivation of a BPS mass bound for junctions.

Explicit solution in a special case.

Abstract

We study N=1 SUSY theories in four dimensions with multiple discrete vacua, which admit solitonic solutions describing segments of domain walls meeting at one-dimensional junctions. We show that there exist solutions preserving one quarter of the underlying supersymmetry -- a single Hermitian supercharge. We derive a BPS bound for the masses of these solutions and construct a solution explicitly in a special case. The relevance to the confining phase of N=1 SUSY Yang-Mills and the M-theory/SYM relationship is discussed.