Supersymmetry breaking by dimensional reduction over coset spaces

We study the dimensional reduction of a ten-dimensional supersymmetric Eg g auge theory over six-dimensional coset spaces. We find that the coset space dimensional reduction over a symmetric coset space leaves the four dimensi onal gauge theory without any track of the original supersymmetry. On the c ontrary the dimensional reduction over a non-symmetric coset space leads to a softly broken supersymmetric gauge theory in four dimensions. The SO7/SO 6 and G(2)/SU(3) are used as representative prototypes of symmetric and non symmetric coset spaces, respectively. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All r ights reserved.