A. Brignole et al., HIGGS AND SUPER-HIGGS EFFECTS WITH NATURALLY VANISHING CLASSICAL VACUUM ENERGY, Physics letters. Section B, 356(4), 1995, pp. 500-508
We construct N = 1 supergravity models where the gauge symmetry and su
persymmetry are both spontaneously broken, with naturally vanishing cl
assical vacuum energy and unsuppressed Goldstino components along gaug
e non-singlet directions. We discuss some physically interesting situa
tions where such a mechanism could play a role, and identify the break
ing of a grand-unified gauge group as the most likely possibility. We
show that, even when the gravitino mass is much smaller than the scale
m(x) of gauge symmetry breaking, important features can be missed if
we first naively integrate out the degrees of freedom of mass O(m(x)),
in the limit of unbroken supersymmetry, and then describe the super-H
iggs effect in the resulting effective theory. We also comment on poss
ible connections with extended supergravities and realistic four-dimen
sional string constructions.