INSTANTONS IN PARTIALLY BROKEN GAUGE GROUPS

We discuss the effects of instantons in partially broken gauge groups on the low-energy effective gauge theory. Such effects arise when some of the instantons of the original gauge group G are no longer contain ed in (or can not be gauge rotated into) the unbroken group H, In case s of simple G and H, a good indicator for the existence of such instan tons is the ''index of embedding.'' However, in the general case one h as to examine pi(3)(G/H) to decide whether there are any instantons in the broken part of the gauge group. We give several examples of super symmetric theories where such instantons exist and leave their effects on the low-energy effective theory, (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.