Micrometer Gravitinos and the Cosmological Constant

Abstract

We compute the 4--dimensional cosmological constant in string compactifications in which the Standard Model fields live on a non-supersymmetric brane inside a supersymmetric bulk. The cosmological constant receives contributions only from the vacuum energy of the bulk supergravity fields, but not from the vacuum energy of the brane fields. The latter is absorbed in a warp factor. Supersymmetry breaking on the brane at the TeV scale implies supersymmetry breaking in the bulk at the micrometer scale. This produces a tiny cosmological constant that agrees with experiment within a few orders of magnitude. Our argument predicts superpartners of the graviton with mass of order $10^{-3}$ eV. They should be observable in short-distance tests of Einstein Gravity.