Goldstone fermions in supersymmetric theories at finite temperature

Abstract

The behavior of supersymmetric theories at finite temperature is examined. It is shown that supersymmetry is broken for any $T\ensuremath{\ge}0$ because of the different statistics obeyed by bosons and fermions. This breaking is always associated with a Goldstone mode(s). This phenomenon is shown to take place even in a free massive theory, where the Goldstone modes are created by composite fermion-boson bilinear operators. In the interacting theory with chiral symmetry, the same bilinear operators create the chiral doublet of Goldstone fermions, which is shown to saturate the Ward-Takahashi identities up to one loop. Because of this spontaneous supersymmetry breaking, the fermions and the bosons acquire different effective masses. In theories without chiral symmetry, at the tree level the fermion-boson bilinear operators create Goldstone modes, but at higher orders these modes become massive and the elementary fermion becomes the Goldstone field because of the mixing with these bilinear operators.