Superconformal symmetry, NMSSM, and inflation

Journal Article · Sat Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.83.025008· OSTI ID:21503982

Ferrara, Sergio ^[1]; Kallosh, Renata; Linde, Andrei; Marrani, Alessio ^[2]; Van Proeyen, Antoine ^[3]

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1. Physics Department, Theory Unit, CERN, CH 1211, Geneva 23 (Switzerland)
2. Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States)
3. Instituut voor Theoretische Fysica, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Leuven (Belgium)

We identify a particularly simple class of supergravity models describing superconformal coupling of matter to supergravity. In these models, which we call the canonical superconformal supergravity models, the kinetic terms in the Jordan frame are canonical, and the scalar potential is the same as in the global theory. The pure supergravity part of the total action has a local Poincare supersymmetry, whereas the chiral and vector multiplets coupled to supergravity have a larger local superconformal symmetry. The scale-free globally supersymmetric theories, such as the NMSSM with a scale-invariant superpotential, can be naturally embedded into this class of theories. After the supergravity embedding, the Jordan frame scalar potential of such theories remains scale free; it is quartic, it contains no mass terms, no nonrenormalizable terms, no cosmological constant. The local superconformal symmetry can be broken by additional terms, which, in the small field limit, are suppressed by the gravitational coupling. This can be achieved by introducing the nonminimal scalar-curvature coupling, and by taking into account interactions with a hidden sector. In this approach, the smallness of the mass parameters in the NMSSM may be traced back to the original superconformal invariance. This allows one to address the {mu} problem and the cosmological domain wall problem in this model, and to implement chaotic inflation in the NMSSM. We discuss the gravitino problem in the NMSSM inflation, as well as the possibility to obtain a broad class of new versions of chaotic inflation in supergravity.

• OSTI ID: 21503982
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 83; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
CHAOS THEORY
CHIRALITY
COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT
COUPLING
FIELD THEORIES
INTERACTIONS
MASS
MATHEMATICS
MULTIPLETS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
SUPERGRAVITY
SUPERSYMMETRY
SYMMETRY
UNIFIED-FIELD THEORIES