INFLATION INDUCED SUSY BREAKING AND FLAT VACUUM DIRECTIONS

Abstract

We discuss how the inflation induced supersymmetry breaking affects the flat directions of SUSY vacua. We show that under general assumptions all gauge nonsinglet fields, parameterizing flat directions (and in particular squarks and sleptons), get large $radiative$ masses which are related to the value of the Hubble constant ($H$) and to the expectation value of the inflaton field. This mass (typically $\sim H$) is of ``non-gravitational'' origin and does not vanishes in the global SUSY limit. Large radiative corrections are induced by $F$-term (or $D$-term) density, which dominates the inflationary universe and strongly breaks supersymmetry. In such theories it is difficult to treat squarks and sleptons as the light fields in the inflationary period. In the generic supergravity theories all flat directions, including moduli, are getting curvature of order the Hubble constant. However, for the gauge-nonsinglet flat directions radiative contribution to the curvature (induced by renormalizable gauge interactions) may be dominant.