TRANSMISSION OF SUPERSYMMETRY BREAKING FROM A 4-DIMENSIONAL BOUNDARY - ART. NO. 065002

In the strong-coupling limit of the heterotic string theory constructe d by Horava and Witten, an 11-dimensional supergravity theory is coupl ed to matter multiplets confined to 10-dimensional mirror planes. This structure suggests that realistic unification models an obtained, aft er compactification of 6 dimensions, as theories of 5-dimensional supe rgravity in an interval, coupling to matter fields on 4-dimensional wa lls. Supersymmetry breaking may be communicated from one boundary to a nother by the 5-dimensional fields. In this paper, we study a toy mode l of this communication in which 5-dimensional super-Yang-Mills theory in the bulk couples to chiral multiplets on the walls. Using the auxi liary fields of the Yang-Mills multiplet, we find a simple algorithm f or coupling the bulk and boundary fields. We demonstrate two different mechanisms for generating soft supersymmetry breaking terms in the bo undary theory. We also compute the Casimir energy generated by supersy mmetry breaking. [S0556-2821(98)07516-X].