More on Softly Broken N = 2 QCD

Abstract

We extend previous work on the soft breaking of N = 2 supersymmetric QCD. We present the formalism for the breaking due to a dilaton spurion for a general gauge group and obtain the exact effective potential. We obtain some general features of the vacuum structure in the pure SU (N) Yang–Mills theory and we also derive a general mass formula for this class of theories, in particular we present explicit results for the mass spectrum in the SU(2) case. Finally we analyze the vacuum structure of the SU(2) theory with one massless hypermultiplet. This theory presents dyon condensation and a first order phase transition in the supersymmetry breaking parameter driven by nonmutually local BPS states. This could be a hint of Argyres–Douglas-like phases in nonsupersymmetric gauge theories.