Superpotential

About: Superpotential is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3836 publications have been published within this topic receiving 137867 citations.

Three-forms, dualities and membranes in four-dimensional supergravity

Abstract: We consider four-dimensional $$ \mathcal{N}=1 $$ supergravity models of a kind appearing in string flux compactifications. It has been recently shown that, by using double three-form multiplets instead of ordinary chiral multiplets, one can promote to dynamical variables (part of) the quantized numbers appearing in the flux-induced superpotential. We show that double three-form multiplets naturally transform under symplectic dualities associated with the special Kahler structure that characterizes their scalar sector. Furthermore, we discuss how to couple membranes which carry arbitrary ‘electric-magnetic’ charges. The complete action is supersymmetric, kappa-symmetric and duality covariant. As an application, we derive the flow equations for BPS domain walls sourced by membranes and give simple analytic examples of their solution.

de Sitter vacua from nonperturbative flux compactifications

Abstract: In this work we present stable de Sitter solutions of =1 supergravity in a geometric type IIB duality frame with the addition of non-perturbative contributions. Contrary to the standard approach we retain the moduli dependence of both the tree level superpotential and its non-perturbative contribution. This provides the possibility for a single-step approach that stabilises all moduli simultaneously in a de Sitter vacuum. By means of a genetic algorithm we find explicit solutions where different scales are separated and hierarchies are investigated.

Chiral gauge dynamics and dynamical supersymmetry breaking

Abstract: We study the dynamics of a chiral SU(2) gauge theory with a Weyl fermion in the I = 3/2 representation and of its supersymmetric generalization. In the former, we find a new and exotic mechanism of confinement, induced by topological excitations that we refer to as magnetic quintets. The supersymmetric version was examined earlier in the context of dynamical supersymmetry breaking by Intriligator, Seiberg, and Shenker, who showed that if this gauge theory confines at the origin of moduli space, one may break supersymmetry by adding a tree level superpotential. We examine the dynamics by deforming the theory on S1 × 3, and show that the infrared behavior of this theory is an interacting CFT at small S1. We argue that this continues to hold at large S1, and if so, that supersymmetry must remain unbroken. Our methods also provide the microscopic origin of various superpotentials in SQCD on S1 × 3 — which were previously obtained by using symmetry and holomorphy — and resolve a long standing interpretational puzzle concerning a flux operator discovered by Affleck, Harvey, and Witten. It is generated by a topological excitation, a ``magnetic bion", whose stability is due to fermion pair exchange between its constituents. We also briefly comment on composite monopole operators as leading effects in two dimensional anti-ferromagnets.