Department of Physics Papers
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
3-26-2013
Abstract
We present the theory of a supersymmetric ghost condensate coupled to N=1 supergravity. This is accomplished using a general formalism for constructing locally supersymmetric higher-derivative chiral superfield actions. The theory admits a ghost condensate vacuum in de Sitter spacetime. Expanded around this vacuum, the scalar sector of the theory is shown to be ghost-free with no spatial gradient instabilities. By direct calculation, the fermion sector is found to consist of a massless chiral fermion and a massless gravitino. By analyzing the supersymmetry transformations, we find that the chiral fermion transforms inhomogeneously, indicating that the ghost condensate vacuum spontaneously breaks local supersymmetry with this field as the Goldstone fermion. Although potentially able to get a mass through the super-Higgs effect, the vanishing superpotential in the ghost condensate theory renders the gravitino massless. Thus local supersymmetry is broken without the super-Higgs effect taking place. This is in agreement with, and gives an explanation for, the direct calculation.
Recommended Citation
Koehn, M., Lehners, J., & Ovrut, B. A. (2013). Ghost Condensate in N = 1 Supergravity. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/physics_papers/287
Date Posted: 09 May 2013
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Koehhn, M., Lehners, J. & Ovrut, B. (2013). Ghost condensate in N=1 supergravity. Physical Review D, 87(6), 065022. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.87.065022
© 2013 American Physical Society