Suppressed SUSY and the Cosmological Constant

Abstract

Rigid SUSY with gauge symmetry has a simple form for the Higgs potential. It is the positive semi--definite sum of the squares of the auxiliary fields. Setting the potential to zero yields a set of equations for the Vacuum Expectation Values (`VEVs') of the scalar fields. These VEVs yield zero vacuum energy for the Higgs potential, even after gauge symmetry breaking (`GSB'). Nothing like this happens in theories without SUSY. However, there are four problems that make this initially promising feature look quite useless and ineffective: (1) SUSY has too many Higgs Fields. (2) SUSY predicts supermultiplets. (3) Spontaneous breaking of SUSY looks contrived and it is unsuccessful anyway (because of the sum rules and the huge auxiliary VEVs). (4) There are negative terms in the supergravity version of the Higgs potential. These problems are normally considered to be an inevitable consequence of SUSY. However, using a technique we call suppression of fields (or `flipping'), we can remove all four problems, without disturbing the basic algebra of SUSY. We start with a conventional Grand Unified Supergravity Theory (`GUST'), and its BRST Master Equation. The BRST Master Equation treats fields and Zinn sources more or less like coordinates and momenta in the Classical Poisson Bracket, and that suggests exchanging the fields and the Zinn sources, as in a canonical transfomation. We call this flipping. The resulting new `suppressed' GUST has a simple quadratic Higgs potential, and so it has a naturally zero cosmological constant after GSB (at tree level). It also has a Master Equation, simply derived from the original GUST, that preserves its symmetry, and its unitarity.