Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 48 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the minimal four-dimensional Super-Poincaré algebra, with , and commuting translations. Lorentz covariance and closure on the existing supercharges permit onlyThe graded Jacobi identity for therefore givesFor example, with , and , the coefficient is a nonzero multiple of . Independence of the translation generators forces . Its adjoint gives the barred result. Thus every supercharge commutes with four-momentum:Consequently . If has a particular mass-shell condition, the nonzero state has the same one. This gives supersymmetric mass degeneracy within an unbroken physical supermultiplet. The qualification matters: after spontaneous supersymmetry breaking, the chosen vacuum is not annihilated by the supercharges, and its one-particle excitations need not constitute degenerate supermultiplets.
For the O'Raifeartaigh model, write , , . Field phases allow to be positive. The canonical Kähler potential and elimination of the auxiliary fields give the F-term scalar potentialA supersymmetric vacuum would require , hence , while could not vanish. Thus F-flatness is impossible. More precisely, with ,The stated strict inequality makes every nonconstant term nonnegative. The entire classical vacuum family isHere , while . The Weyl spinor is the massless goldstino, and the complex scalar field is a pseudomodulus with two zero tree-level squared masses. The hierarchy separates the massive fields from the breaking scale, but it does not itself select along this flat direction.
At the representative vacuum , the chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix isIts physical masses are its singular values: . The two massive Weyl spinors can be combined into one massive Dirac spinor. For , , the real scalar squared masses areIn particular, there is no tachyon under the stated inequality. The splitting of the masses displays supersymmetry breaking directly.
For completeness, the mass spectrum can be given throughout the classical vacuum family, rather than silently fixing the pseudomodulus. A phase rotation makes real and nonnegative without changing physical masses. The massive fermion squared masses areThe real and imaginary scalar sectors have two-by-two scalar squared-mass matriceswhose eigenvalues areBoth determinants are and their traces are positive, so stability holds at every finite . Quantum corrections can lift a pseudomodulus; these formulas describe the classical, tree-level spectrum requested here.
Define the physical mass supertrace byEach real scalar contributes once and each Weyl spinor twice with a minus sign. At this gives . At general , . Hence the tree-level mass supertrace vanishes despite broken supersymmetry:This is the tree-level supertrace mass sum rule, not a claim that the individual masses are equal.
For direct breaking in the Minimal supersymmetric Standard Model, the difficulty is both field content and the tree-level spectrum. A linear gauge-invariant superpotential term needs a gauge-singlet chiral superfield, which the minimal model does not contain. Moreover, with canonical kinetic terms and purely neutral F-term breaking, without D-term mass shifts, the MSSM tree-level sfermion mass constraint applies separately to conserved charge sectors. For one electron pair it gives : both scalar partners cannot be heavy. This is an illustrative charge-sector consequence under those assumptions, not an unrestricted inference from the total supertrace alone. A separate hidden supersymmetry-breaking sector communicating effective soft supersymmetry breaking through loops or suppressed operators avoids the direct canonical tree-level obstruction.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 307 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
First assume global four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetry, canonical positive Kähler potential, and tree level. Write and at the stationary vacuum. The chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix is the symmetric matrix , and the sum of squared Weyl spinor masses is . From the F-term scalar potential , its mixed and holomorphic Hessian matrix blocks areFor canonically normalized real and imaginary parts of the scalar fields, the real scalar mass matrix has trace twice the mixed trace. Its holomorphic blocks can split the two real scalar masses but do not change their sum. HenceA Weyl spinor has two spin states, so this proves the tree-level supertrace mass sum rule,The paper defines its supertrace with , the negative of the conventional boson-minus-fermion supertrace used here. The asserted zero is the same in either convention. The result requires the stated canonical tree-level hypotheses; a noncanonical Kähler metric, supergravity, or radiative corrections can change the sum rule.
If vector multiplets are also present, the gauge contributions to the F-term supertrace cancel rather than being omitted. At , define for the scalar expectation vector . Differentiating adds to the real-scalar trace. The symmetric gaugino-matter mass matrix has off-diagonal entries , giving an extra in its fermion squared-mass trace. The covariant scalar kinetic term gives vector squared-mass trace . Thus their contribution is . The gauge-theory result uses all spin states, including the vector weight three; it is not obtained by dropping massive gauge partners.
The MSSM tree-level sfermion mass constraint explains the phenomenological difficulty with direct visible-sector breaking. If F-term breaking is neutral under an unbroken electric and color gauge symmetry, and no D-term shifts are present, the same trace argument applies within each conserved-charge fermion block. Its corresponding scalar partners cannot all have squared masses above the mean of the light fermion squared masses. Thus canonical tree-level visible-sector supersymmetry breaking alone cannot make every squark and other scalar partner heavy while leaving the observed fermions light. The usual effective soft supersymmetry breaking terms arise after communicating breaking from a separate sector; integrating out that sector, noncanonical interactions and radiative effects evade the hypotheses. The global trace identity alone would not identify a particular light squark without the conserved-charge block argument.
For the specified O'Raifeartaigh model, phases may be chosen so that are real and positive. Its superpotential derivatives areand its F-term scalar potential isFor fixed , choose to minimize the final square. Since ,Thus makes a global minimum with arbitrary . The hierarchy ensures this for fixed perturbative , rather than for arbitrarily large . The origin is one member of this classically flat family, with and . The complex field is a pseudomodulus.
At the origin the chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix, in the basis, isIts physical fermion masses are ; the two massive Weyl spinors form one massive four-component fermion. The massless is the goldstino. More generally, stationarity gives , so the nonzero auxiliary field direction is a null vector of , proving the goldstino zero mode from vacuum stationarity.
Writing and similarly for , the quadratic scalar potential isThe mass spectrum of the quadratic-cubic O'Raifeartaigh model is thereforeThe scalar squared-mass sum is , while twice the fermion squared-mass sum is also , so the supertrace is zero, as required. The two massless real modes are tree-level pseudomoduli, which can be lifted by a quantum effective potential; their tree-level masslessness is not the exact symmetry protection enjoyed by the goldstino.