Gluino Condensation in Strongly Coupled Heterotic String Theory

Petr Horava

doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.54.7561

paper

Gluino Condensation in Strongly Coupled Heterotic String Theory

arXiv:hep-th/9608019 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.54.7561

Abstract

Strongly coupled heterotic $E_{8} \times E_{8}$ string theory, compactified to four dimensions on a large Calabi-Yau manifold $X$ , may represent a viable candidate for the description of low-energy particle phenomenology. In this regime, heterotic string theory is adequately described by low-energy $M$ -theory on $R^{4} \times S^{1} / Z_{2} \times X$ , with the two $E_{8}$ 's supported at the two boundaries of the world. In this paper we study the effects of gluino condensation, as a mechanism for supersymmetry breaking in this $M$ -theory regime. We show that when a gluino condensate forms in $M$ -theory, the conditions for unbroken supersymmetry can still be satisfied locally in the orbifold dimension $S^{1} / Z_{2}$ . Supersymmetry is then only broken by the global topology of the orbifold dimension, in a mechanism similar to the Casimir effect. This mechanism leads to a natural hierarchy of scales, and elucidates some aspects of heterotic string theory that might be relevant to the stabilization of moduli and the smallness of the cosmological constant.

22 pages, harvmac, no figures

Gluino Condensation in Strongly Coupled Heterotic String Theory

Abstract

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