Out of equilibrium dynamics of supersymmetry at high energy density Original Research Article

We investigate the out of equilibrium dynamics of global chiral supersymmetry at finite energy density. We concentrate on two specific models. The first is the massive Wess–Zumino model which we study in a self-consistent one-loop approximation. We find that for energy densities above a certain threshold, the fields are driven dynamically to a point in field space at which the fermionic component of the superfield is massless. The state, however, is found to be unstable, indicating a breakdown of the one-loop approximation. To investigate further, we consider an O(N) massive chiral model which is solved exactly in the large N limit. For sufficiently high energy densities, we find that for late times the fields reach a nonperturbative minimum of the effective potential degenerate with the perturbative minimum. This minimum is a true attractor for O(N) invariant states at high energy densities, and this provides a mechanism for determining which of the otherwise degenerate vacua is chosen by the dynamics. The final state for large energy density is a cloud of massless particles (both bosons and fermions) around this new nonperturbative supersymmetric minimum. By introducing boson masses which softly break the supersymmetry, we demonstrate a see-saw mechanism for generating small fermion masses. We discuss some of the cosmological implications of our results.