Supersymmetry breaking as a quantum phase transition

Holger Gies, Franziska Synatschke, Andreas Wipf

Published 2009-06-30, updated 2009-11-19Version 2

We explore supersymmetry breaking in the light of a rich fixed-point structure of two-dimensional supersymmetric Wess-Zumino models with one supercharge using the functional renormalization group (RG). We relate the dynamical breaking of supersymmetry to an RG relevant control parameter of the superpotential which is a common relevant direction of all fixed points of the system. Supersymmetry breaking can thus be understood as a quantum phase transition analogously to similar transitions in correlated fermion systems. Supersymmetry gives rise to a new superscaling relation between the critical exponent associated with the control parameter and the anomalous dimension of the field -- a scaling relation which is not known in standard spin systems.