Duality Symmetry in Softly Broken N=2 Gauge Theories

Abstract

We study the soft breaking of N=2 self-dual gauge theories down to N=0 by promoting the coupling constant and hypermultiplet masses to spurions, and we analyze the microscopic duality symmetry in the resulting models. Explicit formulae are given for the Seiberg-Witten periods and couplings in the case of SU(2), and we perform a numerical study of the non-supersymmetric vacuum structure in the case of the mass-deformed N=4 SU(2) gauge theory. Although the softly broken model has a well-defined behavior under the duality symmetry, the stable vacua are in a confining phase. We also extend some of the results to the self-dual theories with classical gauge groups, and we obtain the RG equation for these models.

38 pages, 11 postscript figures, LaTeX file

References in corpus (7)

• Introduction to S-Duality in N=2 Supersymmetric Gauge Theory. (A pedagogical review of the work of Seiberg and Witten)
• On Mass-Deformed N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory
• Softly Broken N=2 QCD with Massive Quark Hypermultiplets, I
• Duality in Quantum Field Theory (and String Theory)
• Controlled Soft Breaking of N=1 SQCD
• The dyon spectra of finite gauge theories
• Toy Model for Breaking Super Gauge Theories at the Effective Lagrangian Level

Cited by in corpus (4)

• N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories with massive hypermultiplets and the Whitham hierarchy
• Instanton corrections in N=2 supersymmetric theories with classical gauge groups and fundamental matter hypermultiplets
• Duality in twisted N=4 supersymmetric gauge theories in four dimensions
• Four flavours, triality and bimodular forms