Meta-Stable Vacua in Supersymmetric QCD

Abstract

This masters thesis discusses some aspects of four dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories. More specifically, it discusses a method to break supersymmetry spontaneously in certain gauge theories in a way that bypasses some phenomenological problems. We start by giving a short introduction to supersymmetry and spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. We then discuss a supersymmetric version of QCD and the phenomenon of Seiberg duality. Using these tools we show, following K. Intriligator, N. Seiberg and D. Shih, that supersymmetric QCD has a supersymmetry breaking metastable vacuum for certain number of flavors. We conclude by showing that this metastable vacuum can be made parametrically long lived.