ANALYZING CHIRAL-SYMMETRY BREAKING IN SUPERSYMMETRIC GAUGE-THEORIES

We compare gap equation predictions for the spontaneous breaking of gl obal symmetries in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory to nonperturbative results from holomorphic effective action techniques. In the theory w ithout matter fields, both approaches describe the formation of a glui no condensate. With N-f flavors of quark and squark fields, and with N -f below a certain critical value, the coupled gap equations have a so lution for quark and gluino condensate formation, corresponding to bre aking of global symmetries and of supersymmetry. This appears to disag ree with the newer nonperturbative techniques, but the reliability of gap equations in this context and whether the solution represents the ground state remain unclear. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.