Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2005/iii/paper-55/5/solution

Set , the domain in which the Kähler potential is defined, and use Planck units. The nonzero entries of the Kähler metric and its inverse are
The Kähler covariant derivatives of a superpotential are
Denote and . The supergravity F-term potential is
Here the contribution is exactly , cancelling the negative term. This is the no-scale supergravity identity, giving
The cancellation is important: replacing the covariant derivatives by ordinary derivatives would miss both the matter dependence and the possibility of zero vacuum energy with supersymmetry breaking.
In the convention , the chiral supergravity auxiliary fields are
An overall auxiliary phase or sign convention does not change their vanishing conditions. These are upper-index fields, including the inverse Kähler metric, rather than just the covariant derivatives.
Since is nonnegative and vanishes at , its minimum energy is
There are additional minima that should not be discarded by examining only real . For , the condition becomes
If , the magnitude equation
has exactly one positive root: its left side is strictly increasing from zero to infinity. There are three phases, differing by , determined by . Thus for nonzero the finite zero-energy matter vacua consist of and these three nonzero phase-related values, each with arbitrary in the allowed half-plane. At a nonzero matter vacuum,
At , .
For , every such minimum has but , so supersymmetry is spontaneously broken despite zero vacuum energy. Indeed no finite point anywhere is fully supersymmetric: would force , after which forces and then . This proves breaking for the specified nonzero-constant case without relying just on the positivity of the potential.
For the allowed exceptional value (B=0), the requested breaking statement is false. Then vanishes only at , where . Every finite allowed gives an unbroken supersymmetric vacuum with zero energy. This is an explicit counterexample to unqualified breaking for an arbitrary complex .
Both real components of are flat directions of a scalar potential along every minimum: the imaginary component never appears in , and when the entire dependence is multiplied by zero. The matter vacua are isolated in the plane; there is no continuous matter vacuum direction. At the potential begins quartically in , so zero quadratic mass is not a flat vacuum manifold. Away from , the real direction instead has and a decompactification-type runaway towards zero as , not a further finite positive-energy minimum.
The gravitino mass from a superpotential is
At the branch it is ; at each nonzero branch it is . Its value is not fixed because the modulus is flat. For it vanishes at the supersymmetric minimum. For nonzero , the super-Higgs mechanism absorbs the Goldstino associated with into the massive gravitino. The zero-energy relation is explicitly satisfied:
which balances the auxiliary contribution against the gravitational negative term.

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