Scanning of the supersymmetry breaking scale and the gravitino mass in supergravity

Fotis Farakos,Antonio Riotto,Davide Racco,Alex Kehagias

doi:10.1007/jhep06(2016)120

Abstract

We consider the minimal three-form ${\cal N}=1$ supergravity coupled to nilpotent three-form chiral superfields. The supersymmetry breaking is sourced by the three-forms of the chiral multiplets, while the value of the gravitino mass is controlled by the three-form of the supergravity multiplet. The three-forms can nucleate membranes which scan both the supersymmetry breaking scale and the gravitino mass. The peculiar supergravity feature that the cosmological constant is the sum of a positive contribution from the supersymmetry breaking scale and a negative contribution from the gravitino mass makes the cosmological constant jump. This can lead to a phenomenologically allowed small value of the cosmological constant even though the supersymmetry breaking scale and the gravitino mass are dynamically large.

Highlights

The mechanism, appealing, has two serious drawbacks [6,7,8]
The supersymmetry breaking is sourced by the three-forms of the chiral multiplets, while the value of the gravitino mass is controlled by the threeform of the supergravity multiplet
In this paper we have studied the scanning of the supersymmetry breaking scale and the gravitino mass induced by membrane nucleation, which may give rise to the dynamical neutralization of the cosmological constant

Summary

Three-form chiral superfields and three-form supergravity

In this work we will utilize three-form multiplets for the supersymmetry breaking sector. Let us rapidly review the structure of the minimal three-form N = 1 supergravity [24] This theory originates from the old-minimal N = 1 supergravity by replacing one of the two real scalar auxiliary fields of the graviton multiplet by a three-form. In this case, the free theory is anti-de Sitter supergravity where the mass of the gravitino is the vacuum expectation value of the four-form field strength and the cosmological constant is negative and proportional to the square of the gravitino mass [24]. The constraint (2.12) has two effects: first it removes all the component fields of Φ , except the real three-form, Hmnp and secondly it implies that for the complex auxiliary M = (M1 + iM2) of the supergravity multiplet we have.

Coupling to membranes

Multiple membranes and multiple three-forms

Reheating

Conclusions