Consistency in explicitly broken N = 1 supergravity with matter couplings

Abstract

Using N = 1 supergravity coupled to general, gauged, N = 1 matter, we show that the addition of a wide class of explicit supersymmetry breaking terms in the N = 1 matter fields can still lead to the spin 3 2 field satisfying an equation of motion in which propagation is causal. We argue that a similar result holds in the case of N = 2 supergravity coupled to matter, plus explicit terms.