Destabilizing Divergences in Supergravity Theories

Abstract

We study the stability of the gauge hierarchy in hidden-sector supergravity theories. We show that a destabilizing tadpole can appear if a theory has a gauge- and global-symmetry singlet with renormalizable couplings to the visible fields. We also find a quadratically divergent two-loop contribution to the supersymmetric effective potential. This term illustrates the difficulty of using the "LHC mechanism" to control quadratic divergences in theories with Planck-scale vevs.

Invited Talk presented at SUSY-95, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France, 15-19 May 1995