Work with the local Wilsonian effective action, retaining the elementary chiral superfield and using a nonzero infrared cutoff. Its superpotential is holomorphic in both the field and chiral spurions representing the couplings. A convenient pair of spurion symmetries assigns charges
Both couplings and transform nontrivially under each displayed symmetry. Each superpotential monomial has ordinary charge zero and R-charge two, so the integral is invariant. This R assignment differs from the conventional assignment for by twice the ordinary charge, and describes the same two-dimensional charge space. These are formal spurion symmetries; fixing the couplings to numerical values need not leave them as actual symmetries of the fields alone.
For , has the required charges and mass dimension three, while has zero charge under both symmetries and is dimensionless. Thus the allowed holomorphic form is
One can see its generality directly. A holomorphic monomial must obey and . Solving gives and , hence precisely . A field-independent constant is irrelevant to this global supersymmetric action and can be dropped.
The symmetries alone leave the function arbitrary. To determine its perturbative form, use regularity as well as the two limits. A regular weak-coupling expansion at has
The limit is a free massive theory, so . Since the elementary field has not been integrated out, the Wilsonian superpotential must remain regular term by term as with the infrared cutoff fixed. Every term with would introduce a pole in and is excluded. Negative powers of were already excluded by perturbative regularity at . Consequently .
At , the only surviving allowed interaction is proportional to . Its coefficient is first order in , and matching the tree three-field vertex gives . No closed-loop three-field diagram can be made from a single cubic vertex; extra interaction vertices would produce higher coupling order. Equivalently free superspace propagators join chiral to antichiral fields, so a closed loop would require additional vertices or conjugate couplings, which the holomorphic charge constraints exclude for this term. This fixes the coefficient without assuming the desired conclusion. Therefore
The regularity condition is essential: it concerns the local Wilsonian superpotential with the field retained, not a nonlocal one-particle-irreducible functional at zero infrared cutoff or a superpotential obtained by eliminating a massive field. Such different operations can generate inverse masses or infrared singularities without contradicting this proof.
The Kähler potential is a real D-term, not a holomorphic F-term, and is not protected by this argument. For example its quadratic part becomes , with higher real operators also allowed. Terms involving are compatible with the symmetries and produce wave-function renormalization. After the canonical rescaling , the parameters in the superpotential expressed using canonical fields are and , so physical couplings can run despite the holomorphic non-renormalization statement.
Holomorphy is crucial. Without it, neutral factors such as could multiply either superpotential monomial while respecting both spurion symmetries. Excluding conjugate couplings, together with regularity and tree matching, is what turns the charge argument into the non-renormalization theorem.
Work on the physical domain
and abbreviate , , and . There are no vector multiplets specified, hence no additional gauge D-term. In Planck units the supergravity F-term potential and upper-index supergravity auxiliary fields are
The overall auxiliary-field sign is a convention; its vanishing and norm are invariant statements.
The Kähler covariant derivatives of a superpotential here are
The Kähler metric, with rows and columns their barred partners, is
Its block is positive definite because its leading diagonal and determinant are positive. In the inverse-tensor convention , the nonzero upper components are
In particular the conjugations in the off-diagonal components matter.
To verify the no-scale supergravity cancellation explicitly, temporarily write and . Their part of the metric contraction is
The terms involving and its conjugate cancel between the mixed and diagonal contributions. The remaining cancels the universal negative term. Since , the exact matter-logarithm no-scale potential is therefore
It differs from a model where appears outside the logarithm in the Kähler potential.
Substitution into the auxiliary-field formula gives
For example , which reduces to the displayed expression for the cubic superpotential. To test unbroken supersymmetry at any finite point, first forces . Then forces , whereas forces . Subtracting gives . Because , and at a finite point, all auxiliaries can vanish only if . Thus every nontrivial choice of breaks supersymmetry at finite field values.
A finite zero-energy minimum requires both nonnegative terms of to vanish:
There cannot be a finite positive-energy stationary point: keeping fixed and varying the real part of , equivalently , gives
which is strictly negative unless . Hence these zero-energy solutions are all the possible finite minima.
Because were allowed to be arbitrary, existence must be checked. If both are nonzero, put and . The magnitude equation is
The function on the right starts at one at the excluded boundary , tends to zero as , and has derivative . Its maximum is at . Therefore a finite cubic-matter no-scale vacuum with an exponential dilaton exists exactly when
There is one finite positive root for , two for , and one merged root at the maximum. The complex phase equation fixes modulo . If exactly one of vanishes, or the ratio exceeds the bound, no finite minimum exists; the potential instead has infimum zero along the runaway . A zero infimum at an infinite-field boundary is not an attained finite vacuum.
On a nontrivial finite branch, , so
This proves supersymmetry breaking at the intended no-scale vacuum. Its zero energy is consistent with the negative gravitational term: , which cancels in . It is not a counterexample to the global-supersymmetry positivity argument in question 3.
Both real components of are exactly flat on the vacuum family: never enters the potential, and at every allowed positive gives the same zero energy. Generically both components of are fixed. Although the matter field has no quadratic mass there, it is not an exact flat direction: for fixed at its root, and the leading positive potential is . At the special merged root , the real- quadratic curvature also vanishes, but higher orders lift it; this does not add a continuous flat vacuum direction. If , by contrast, is a supersymmetric zero-energy family with both complex and flat and all auxiliaries zero. This exception prevents an unconditional breaking assertion for arbitrary constants.
Finally the gravitino mass from a superpotential is
At a nontrivial finite minimum it becomes
Its value varies along the flat volume modulus; the classical potential does not select a unique supersymmetry-breaking or gravitino-mass scale. On the trivial supersymmetric branch , it is zero.
R-parity is the multiplicative quantum number
where are baryon number, lepton number and spin. Ordinary Standard Model particles have and their superpartners have . Gauge invariance alone allows MSSM superpotential terms , , and . Simultaneous baryon- and lepton-number violation can induce rapid proton decay. Exact R-parity forbids these renormalizable terms, since the associated matter parity is odd; it does not forbid every higher-dimensional proton-decay operator, for example .
Two consequences are superpartner production in pairs from ordinary-particle initial states and stability of the lightest supersymmetric particle: a single parity-odd particle cannot decay only into parity-even particles. Cascades therefore end in the lightest supersymmetric particle; if it is neutral and weakly interacting, it produces missing-energy signatures.
A continuous R-symmetry rotates and the supercharges. With , the superpotential has R-charge two and the fermion in a chiral superfield has one less charge than its scalar. R-parity is only a discrete restriction, represented by combining matter parity with , and need not preserve a full continuous R-symmetry. For example, a gaugino Majorana mass term violates an unbroken continuous R-symmetry but preserves R-parity. Thus proton protection by parity and continuous R-charge selection rules are distinct requirements.
For a chiral superfield of mass dimension one, a renormalizable quantum field theory has a quadratic Kähler potential and a superpotential of degree at most three. Before canonical normalization one may write
with real , and
The purely holomorphic terms in , their conjugates and its constant have vanishing full superspace integration; they are Kähler transformations of the global theory. Rescaling the chiral superfield sets , so the physically general kinetic choice is up to these terms. The constant superpotential in global supersymmetry also has no component effect. The dimensions of are respectively two, one and zero.
To eliminate the linear term, translate the complex chiral superfield as . The shifted linear coefficient is
If , this quadratic has a root over the complex numbers; if but , take . The resulting linear term vanishes and the new quadratic coefficient is . The canonical Kähler potential changes only by holomorphic, antiholomorphic and constant terms, which do not change the global kinetic action. This is the superpotential critical-point shift.
The claim needs an exception: if but , the superpotential is purely linear and no invertible translation can remove it. More generally an invertible regular field redefinition cannot turn a nowhere-zero derivative into a critical point. The theory with has , a constant positive scalar potential , and flat F-term breaking with a linear superpotential. Below, and denote the quadratic/cubic coefficients after the valid shift, as intended by the question.
Expand in chiral coordinates. The highest component of is , while the full-superspace kinetic term contains . Thus the auxiliary field part of the component Lagrangian is
Varying and independently gives
Substitution gives , and hence the F-term scalar potential
It is nonnegative and vanishes at , and also at when . These are supersymmetric vacua, since the auxiliary field vanishes. Thus the quadratic/cubic model does not spontaneously break supersymmetry. If but , zero is the sole critical point; if both vanish, every is a zero-energy vacuum. Nonzero give the usual two vacua, coinciding when .
For the loop argument, promote the coefficients to background chiral spurions. One convenient pair of independent formal charge assignments is
Both symmetries act nontrivially on all three of ; the second is an R-symmetry. The superspace integration measure has R-charge , so both tree monomials give invariant actions. These are spurionic selection rules, not necessarily actual symmetries after fixing numerical couplings. The R-row is an ordinary-charge redefinition of the usual Wess–Zumino spurion charge assignment.
A local Wilsonian superpotential is a holomorphic function of the chiral fields and chiral spurions. The ratio is neutral under both charge assignments and has dimension zero, whereas has exactly the charges and dimension of . The general symmetry-allowed form, on a patch with and up to a physically irrelevant global constant, is therefore
with holomorphic where that description is regular. Symmetry by itself does not determine .
For a regular perturbative local Wilsonian effective action retaining the same elementary field and an infrared cutoff, expand . Its term of order is . Negative are singular in , while are singular in ; these are excluded by perturbative holomorphic regularity at the free-coupling limits. Thus only the quadratic and cubic terms survive. Their regular holomorphic coefficients cannot acquire coupling-dependent invariant corrections. At the quadratic theory is Gaussian, fixing exactly. A contribution linear in to the cubic vertex has only one cubic interaction: three external lines exhaust that vertex, leaving no contraction to form a loop. Thus as well in the present normalization. This supplies the holomorphy argument for superpotential non-renormalization rather than concluding non-renormalization from symmetry alone.
The Kähler potential can still undergo wave-function renormalization. If its quadratic coefficient becomes , canonical normalization gives and , so physical masses and interactions can run despite superpotential non-renormalization. More generally a positive nonsingular effective Kähler metric replaces by and does not remove its zero-energy critical points. Infrared-singular nonlocal one-particle-irreducible terms and eliminating the entire massive field are outside this Wilsonian statement.
Take canonical kinetic terms, gauge coupling , and a nonzero charge . Define and choose the convention in which the Fayet–Iliopoulos term contributes to the Lagrangian. With one charged chiral superfield, gauge invariance permits no nonconstant polynomial superpotential; an irrelevant global constant gives . The real auxiliary field part is
Its equation of motion is . Eliminating it gives the D-term scalar potential
The gaugino transformation has the form a field-strength term, with a convention-dependent overall phase. In a translationally invariant vacuum with zero field strength, a nonzero therefore gives an inhomogeneous shift of : no nonzero supersymmetry parameter leaves the vacuum invariant. The massless Goldstino is consequently the gaugino, not the matter fermion, since .
Minimize the potential over . If , the allowed value sets , so supersymmetry is unbroken while the internal gauge symmetry is Higgsed. If , the origin also has . For the broken branch, and the formal zero of would require negative . The actual minimum is
This is single charged-field D-term breaking. Nonzero FI parameter alone does not force breaking if a scalar can cancel it. The degenerate case is different: any breaks supersymmetry in the vector sector while the neutral scalar remains flat; the sign test above assumes an actually charged field.
Expand around the broken vacuum:
For , both canonically normalized real scalars have squared mass . The matter Weyl spinor has no superpotential mass. The gauge boson remains massless because . The gauge Yukawa coupling, proportional to , gives no fermion mixing or mass at this vacuum, so the gaugino is also massless. The tree-level spectrum is therefore
and the chiral-multiplet splitting is
The vector and its gaugino happen to remain degenerate at zero mass even though supersymmetry is broken. If the sign convention for the FI contribution is reversed, the sign criterion changes accordingly; the invariant condition is that the scalar condensate cannot cancel the auxiliary source. This is the classical toy-model spectrum; a quantum completion of the single charged-fermion theory also has to cancel its gauge anomalies.
Four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetry is compatible with a chiral gauge spectrum. Each matter Weyl spinor belongs to a chiral superfield with a complex scalar in the same gauge representation, and each gauge boson belongs to a vector multiplet with an adjoint gaugino. Thus a supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model predicts squarks, sleptons and gauge-fermion partners, together with Higgs-sector partners. Exact unbroken supersymmetry would make partners mass-degenerate, so a phenomenologically useful model needs supersymmetry breaking.
The Minimal supersymmetric Standard Model uses two Higgs chiral doublets. Holomorphy of the superpotential prevents use of the conjugate of one doublet as an independent chiral field, so up-type and down-type Yukawa couplings require opposite-hypercharge doublets. Their higgsinos also cancel each other's gauge anomalies. The superpotential has the schematic form
with gauge contractions understood. Supersymmetry relates the scalar quartic interactions and Yukawa interactions to the same gauge and superpotential couplings, rather than allowing arbitrary independent choices.
A central motivation is the hierarchy problem. A nonsupersymmetric scalar mass can receive corrections proportional to a high ultraviolet cutoff squared. The paired bosonic and fermionic loops in exact supersymmetry cancel that quadratic sensitivity. Soft supersymmetry breaking introduces scalar squared masses, gaugino masses and appropriate scalar bilinear and trilinear terms without restoring the original quadratic divergence. With a typical soft scale , residual corrections have the schematic size
plus finite thresholds. This favors not excessively heavy partners if one wishes to avoid a new tuning, but does not derive their masses or guarantee that they are experimentally accessible. A hidden breaking sector can communicate soft terms through gauge or gravitational interactions.
The altered particle spectrum also changes the renormalization group evolution of the gauge couplings. The MSSM one-loop coefficients, with the usual grand-unified hypercharge normalization, are in . They allow approximate supersymmetric gauge coupling unification near GeV, subject to threshold corrections. Top-Yukawa effects can drive the up-type Higgs squared mass negative and help produce radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. Neither phenomenon alone specifies a full breaking mechanism.
Without an additional symmetry, gauge invariance allows renormalizable baryon- or lepton-number violating superpotential terms. Conserved R-parity, , forbids the usual such renormalizable terms, distinguishes ordinary particles from their superpartners, and makes the lightest supersymmetric particle stable. A neutral stable lightest partner can be a dark matter candidate; its abundance and interactions require a separate calculation. Pair production followed by cascades to such a particle can give missing-momentum signals. R-parity is an extra model assumption, and does not by itself exclude all higher-dimensional proton-decay operators.
Possible low-energy consequences are a partner spectrum, controlled scalar-mass sensitivity, a constrained Higgs sector, modified coupling evolution and, with conserved R-parity, a stable lightest partner. Soft parameters also affect flavor-changing and CP-violating processes. Supersymmetry provides relations and mechanisms, not a unique numerical spectrum or an automatic solution to every flavor or cosmological problem.
At the usual two-derivative order, the two-derivative global supersymmetric gauge action is
Here is the chiral field-strength superfield, distinguished from the superpotential . The Kähler potential is a real gauge-invariant function, defined up to a Kähler transformation; supplies the scalar kinetic metric. The superpotential is a gauge-invariant holomorphic function of the chiral superfields. The symmetric gauge kinetic function is holomorphic and transforms so that its contraction with the field strengths is gauge invariant. Its real part supplies the gauge and gaugino kinetic coefficients and must be positive on physical configurations; its imaginary part supplies the topological angle. The final constants are Fayet–Iliopoulos terms, normalized so that they contribute when has highest component .
For the simple non-Abelian gauge group specified in the question, . Invariance of a proposed requires . A simple Lie algebra equals its commutator algebra, so no nonzero invariant covector exists. This proves that Fayet–Iliopoulos terms require an Abelian gauge factor. The last term above describes the customary Abelian extension, not an additional arbitrary coupling of the simple group.
For a renormalizable theory, after choosing matter bases the functions reduce to
Only gauge-invariant monomials are included. A nonconstant would produce interactions of dimension greater than four. Here the gauge coupling is absorbed into the connection in , while in the holomorphic normalization. A constant has no dynamical effect in global supersymmetry. The original arbitrary functions remain useful for a nonrenormalizable two-derivative effective theory, but the following argument restricts to the requested renormalizable setting.
To analyze perturbative corrections, use a local Wilsonian effective action with a nonzero infrared cutoff and keep the same elementary fields. Introduce nondynamical background chiral superfields into its F-term part:
One may additionally promote each polynomial coefficient to its own chiral spurion to track flavor charges. Treating the couplings as fields ensures that a local chiral integral depends holomorphically on : antichiral dependence would violate the chirality constraint unless accompanied by derivatives or rewritten as a D-term. This is the key use of holomorphy, rather than an assumption that all effective-action terms are holomorphic.
Give R-charge one, the matter fields charge zero, charge two and charge zero. Then the chiral measure has charge minus two, has charge two, and has charge one. These assignments define formal spurionic symmetries even if fixed numerical couplings do not enjoy the corresponding physical symmetry. An anomalous transformation is accompanied by the appropriate shift of the gauge-coupling spurion; nonperturbative dependence can record that anomaly.
For the superpotential non-renormalization argument, perturbation theory is insensitive to continuous shifts of the topological angle, which shifts the imaginary part of . A holomorphic coefficient invariant under every such shift is independent of by the Cauchy-Riemann equations. This proves perturbative gauge-coupling independence of the Wilsonian superpotential. At fixed infrared cutoff the perturbative expansion is regular near zero superpotential couplings. R-charge two therefore forces an allowed correction to be linear in , rather than involving , or inverse powers of . Flavor charges impose the corresponding monomial selection rules.
The remaining coefficient can be evaluated at zero gauge coupling. Free chiral propagators join a chiral and an antichiral endpoint. A single holomorphic superpotential vertex cannot close a loop; adding antichiral vertices violates holomorphy, while adding holomorphic vertices violates the linear spurion degree. Consequently the coefficient is its tree value. This proves, rather than merely quotes, the perturbative result
The fixed-cutoff regularity matters: integrating out a whole massive multiplet can introduce inverse masses at tree level, and infrared-singular one-particle-irreducible expressions are not this local Wilsonian superpotential.
For the gauge kinetic function, R-charge zero excludes regular positive powers of in its perturbative coefficient. Flavor spurions cannot repair this without forbidden antichiral or singular dependence. A topological-angle shift changes the tree gauge term only by its topological contribution, so the correction is invariant under the shift. Holomorphy then makes it independent of . An -loop correction to the inverse gauge coupling carries the weak-coupling behavior : only one loop has the required coupling-independent behavior. Hence the one-loop exactness of the holomorphic gauge kinetic function gives
up to a one-loop matching constant. The coefficient follows from the usual one-loop field contributions: gauge bosons and an adjoint Weyl gaugino contribute , while a chiral Weyl fermion and complex scalar contribute . Holomorphic logarithmic thresholds appear when massive fields are eliminated. This statement is about the holomorphic Wilsonian coupling, not a canonically normalized physical gauge coupling, whose running need not be one-loop exact.
The Kähler potential is integrated over all of superspace. It can depend on , on both and , and on both matter chiralities. These neutral combinations allow ordinary loop corrections, such as a Yukawa-dependent correction to , and no analogous argument forbids higher loops. Thus
Its wave-function renormalization changes physical superpotential couplings after canonical normalization even though holomorphic vertex coefficients do not change. For a single field with kinetic coefficient , for instance, and .
Finally consider perturbative renormalization of a Fayet–Iliopoulos term in an Abelian extension. A term must be invariant under for arbitrary chiral . Projection of the variation requires . An arbitrary algebraic function of background chiral spurions and their conjugates fails this requirement unless it is constant. Therefore a general coupling-dependent local FI counterterm is forbidden. The one-loop tadpole from charged scalars can still give
It is independent of interaction couplings in the connection normalization used above and proportional to the trace of the Abelian charge generator. Higher-loop diagrams require interactions and cannot produce the permitted coupling-independent additive term. Thus a traceless Abelian charge generator has no additive perturbative FI renormalization in this exactly supersymmetric setting; otherwise a one-loop, regulator-dependent tadpole is possible. Vector-field normalization can change the reported canonical parameter, and soft breaking falls outside this proof. For the specified simple group, gauge invariance forbids before and after corrections.
These are perturbative statements. Instantons or other nonperturbative effects may produce symmetry-allowed holomorphic terms, for example dependence on , so neither the superpotential result nor the one-loop gauge result should be misread as forbidding all nonperturbative corrections.
Use the canonical chiral-superfield component expansion in chiral coordinates, with . Multiplication of the Grassmann variables gives
For example, the two linear-in- factors in contribute , while each of the three choices of the remaining scalar in gives the same contribution. Thus the required F-term is
Adding its Hermitian conjugate and the canonical term eliminates the auxiliary field through and yields the F-term scalar potential
It is nonnegative, and for its absolute minima are and , each with zero energy. They coincide when . If , only is a minimum; if , every is a minimum. These exhaust the local minima as well: at any other stationary point forces ; for this is , whose quadratic variation has opposite signs in two real directions and is a saddle.
Expand around , writing . The scalar potential and fermionic terms are
The canonical kinetic term is . Its quadratic potential is , while the Weyl fermion has mass . Hence
At the other minimum, , so the same mass equality holds. The quartic and Yukawa interaction are both fixed by : defining and gives
This is the supersymmetric relation between quartic and Yukawa couplings. The printed equality of the two couplings refers to their common supersymmetric origin; literal equality of the conventional coefficients and is not true for arbitrary . If instead the Yukawa term is defined as , then and .
To establish perturbative superpotential non-renormalization, use a Wilsonian effective action with a fixed positive infrared cutoff, so integrating out modes does not introduce massless infrared singularities. Promote to nondynamical chiral superfields, or spurions. The holomorphic superpotential depends holomorphically on , not on their complex conjugates. Assign an ordinary charge and an R-charge by
The superspace coordinate has , so has charge and must have R-charge . Both original monomials satisfy the two selection rules. A holomorphic perturbative monomial must obey
which gives and . Equivalently,
The nonnegative integer follows from perturbative analyticity in . Regularity as at the fixed Wilsonian cutoff excludes , which would require negative powers of . The remaining quadratic coefficient is fixed to by the free theory at . The coefficient is : a three-point contribution at first order in has just one cubic vertex, uses all three legs externally, and cannot contain a loop. A loop correction would require additional interactions, whereas the selection rules and holomorphy have already excluded the corresponding monomials. Therefore
This proof concerns the local Wilsonian superpotential. The Kähler potential can acquire a wave-function factor , and canonical normalization changes the couplings to and . Such running, and nonlocal infrared terms in a one-particle-irreducible action, do not contradict the holomorphic result.
Assume global four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetry with canonical kinetic terms and no explicit gaugino mass. Write and . To match the displayed stationarity equation, use ; this differs by a minus sign from the eliminated auxiliary field in the component convention of Solution 2. The real D-terms are , with Hermitian gauge generators. A constant Fayet–Iliopoulos term is permitted only for an appropriate Abelian factor. The scalar potential is
Differentiate with respect to , holding independent:
Thus stationary point conditions gives the first requested identity. Gauge invariance of the superpotential gives . Conjugating it and using Hermiticity gives , the second condition in the form needed below.
At the vacuum, define and . The two conditions combine as
Here the upper equation is stationarity and the lower equation is conjugated gauge invariance. The chiral-superfield fermion mass matrix contributes , and the gauge Yukawa interaction contributes the mixed chiral-fermion/gaugino bilinear. With canonical Weyl fermion and gaugino kinetic terms, and choosing the gaugino phase to put the mixed bilinear in real-sign convention, these terms are
The factor is important: the matrix directly acting on the printed is the same mass bilinear with rescaled gauginos, rather than literally the canonical matrix. In detail, for ,
Since supersymmetry breaking makes this vector nonzero, there is at least one zero mass eigenvalue. A normalized massless fermion is
With the consistent gaugino phase, the inhomogeneous vacuum supersymmetry transformation of is proportional to the same vector . Therefore shifts by a nonzero constant times the transformation parameter: it is the Goldstino, the Goldstone fermion of broken global supersymmetry. The argument guarantees at least one Goldstino zero mode, not the absence of other massless fermions.
For the second calculation, first take only canonical chiral superfields and F-term breaking. At a stationary vacuum , let , and
These follow by differentiating twice. The quadratic scalar potential is
The doubled scalar mass matrix has blocks
Transforming to the canonically normalized real components of preserves its trace, so the sum of real scalar mass squares is . The Weyl fermion mass squares are the eigenvalues of and their sum is . Each Weyl mass eigenstate has two physical spin states. The printed supertrace has scalar sign and fermion weight , hence
The frequently used boson-minus-fermion definition has the opposite overall sign and gives the same zero. The mixing block can split scalar masses but cannot change this trace. This proves the tree-level supertrace mass sum rule; it uses canonical kinetic terms and a renormalizable global theory, rather than a general supergravity or noncanonical effective theory.
In the MSSM, trying to make all squarks and sleptons heavy through direct canonical tree-level F-term breaking encounters this constraint. In an unbroken electric-charge and color sector, the scalar mass-squared trace is twice the trace for its ordinary fermionic partners. More explicitly, take a unit vector minimizing . For , choose so that . The curvature along this real scalar direction is then at most , so at least one scalar mass square is no larger than the smallest fermion mass square in that sector. For one isolated pair the scalar masses are . Thus light quarks can force an unacceptably light squark, or a tachyon, under these assumptions. A hidden supersymmetry-breaking sector with mediation produces effective soft supersymmetry breaking; radiative effects, noncanonical kinetic terms, or supergravity can change the assumptions and allow a viable spectrum. The trace over an arbitrary enlarged theory alone would not locate the light state in the visible sector; the MSSM conclusion uses the conserved-charge block structure.
Use left-chiral superfields throughout, abbreviating the conjugate singlets by , , and . The printed hypercharge convention is the negative of the usual one, so ; consequently is the down-type and the up-type Higgs doublet. Write for the weak-doublet contraction. Assign baryon number , , and lepton number , ; both Higgs fields have .
The baryon number and lepton number conserving homogeneous cubic superpotential is
Each term has zero hypercharge, is a color and weak singlet, and has . Higgs expectation values give the usual quark and charged-lepton Yukawa interaction masses and, here, Dirac neutrino masses. The complete remaining cubic part is
The first two terms have , the third has , the fourth has , and the last has . Their Hermitian conjugates reverse these signs. Commutativity of chiral superfields and the antisymmetric weak/color contractions give and ; can be taken completely symmetric. All other coupling tensors are unrestricted complex tensors.
To check completeness, a cubic color singlet containing a quark doublet and an antiquark singlet must contain a colorless weak doublet; the allowed hypercharges give , and . Three color-antitriplet singlets can form a singlet with , but hypercharge permits only . Three quark doublets cannot be a weak singlet. With no colored fields, an even number of weak doublets is necessary. Two doublets and a singlet give precisely , , and ; contractions of two identical Higgs superfields vanish. With no doublets the only neutral triple is . Thus is the most general homogeneous cubic superpotential for the printed fields, including their singlet neutrinos.
If “cubic” is intended to mean a polynomial of degree at most three, also add
The term conserves both charges; the other nonconstant terms have respectively . This distinction will matter for the printed claim about R-parity.
For squark-mediated proton decay, choose and with or . The same down-type singlet squark can appear in both vertices; would give by antisymmetry. The first term includes an electron/up-quark/squark vertex, and the second an up-quark/down-quark/squark vertex. Exchanging a squark of mass and expanding its propagator at momenta much smaller than produces the dimension-six effective operator
The left- and right-handed pairs are separately contracted spinor bilinears. This operator converts an up/down quark pair into a positron and an antiquark; the spectator up quark can combine with the antiquark into the neutral pion. Equivalently its hadronic matrix element between a proton and a pion is permitted, so it induces . Having both the baryon number and lepton number violating vertices is what enables this channel.
Since has mass dimension , dimensional analysis gives
The dimensionless includes the hadronic matrix element and two-body phase space; the pion mass changes this factor rather than the leading dimensions. Dimensional grounds alone do not give a precise hadronic coefficient. Using the lifetime supplied in the paper, rather than substituting a different bound, gives and hence
For an illustrative squark this is about when is rounded to . The bound constrains the relevant flavour product and depends on the exchanged mass; separate smallness of each coupling does not follow without an additional assumption.
Define matter parity and R-parity by
Every matter superfield has , whereas and the vector superfields have . For ordinary quarks and antiquarks, is odd and , so . For charged leptons, neutrinos and their antiparticles, is odd and , again giving ; the singlet neutrino fermion obeys the same rule. Gluons, the photon, and have and spin one, hence ; Higgs bosons have and also . Thus every Standard Model particle is R-even, including the corresponding antiparticles. Changing spin by one half within a supermultiplet reverses , so squarks, sleptons, gauginos and Higgsinos are R-odd.
Each conserving cubic term contains two R-odd matter superfields and one even Higgs superfield, so it is even under matter parity. Each term in has an odd number of matter superfields: three for , and one for . All are therefore forbidden. At the component level the two fermion spin factors in a Yukawa interaction multiply to , so the same selection rule follows directly from R-parity. This verifies all cubic baryon/lepton-number violating terms are forbidden while the Yukawa fermion mass terms survive.
The blanket assertion needs a qualification beyond homogeneous cubic terms. The Higgs term is even; and are odd and forbidden. But is even and permits a Majorana neutrino mass despite violating lepton number by two. Likewise the higher-dimensional operators and are even. Consequently R-parity alone does not enforce all-order conservation of baryon number and lepton number, or absolute proton stability; the stated precise exclusion holds for the violating cubic interactions above.
Two physical implications follow from multiplicative conservation of R-parity. Superpartners are produced in even numbers from an initial state consisting only of Standard Model particles, leading to pair production at the lowest threshold and parity-conserving cascades. The lightest supersymmetric particle is stable, since one R-odd particle cannot decay exclusively into R-even particles and no lighter R-odd state is available. A neutral weakly interacting lightest supersymmetric particle can therefore be a dark-matter candidate and produce missing-energy signatures; neutrality and a suitable abundance require further model assumptions.