The Perils of `Soft' SUSY Breaking

We consider a two dimensional SU(N) gauge theory coupled to an adjoint Majorana fermion, which is known to be supersymmetric for a particular value of fermion mass. We investigate the `soft' supersymmetry breaking of the discrete light cone quantization (DLCQ) of this theory. There are several DLCQ formulations of this theory currently in the literature and they naively appear to behave differently under `soft' supersymmetry breaking at finite resolution. We show that all these formulations nevertheless yield identical bound state masses in the decompactification limit of the light-like circle. Moreover, we are able to show that the supersymmetry-inspired version of DLCQ (so called `SDLCQ') provides the best rate of convergence of DLCQ bound state masses towards the actual continuum values, except possibly near or at the critical fermion mass. In this last case, we discuss improved extrapolation schemes that must supplement the DLCQ algorithm in order to obtain correct continuum bound state masses. Interestingly, when we truncate the Fock space to two particles, the SDLCQ prescription presented here provides a scheme for improving the rate of convergence of the massive t'Hooft model. Thus the supersymmetry-inspired SDLCQ prescription is applicable to theories without supersymmetry.Comment: 11 pages, Latex; 2 figures (EPS); Numerical results extended; conclusions revise

Bound States of Dimensionally Reduced {SYM}_{2+1} at Finite N

We consider the dimensional reduction of N=1 {SYM}_{2+1} to 1+1 dimensions. The gauge groups we consider are U(N) and SU(N), where N is finite. We formulate the continuum bound state problem in the light-cone formalism, and show that any normalizable SU(N) bound state must be a superposition of an infinite number of Fock states. We also discuss how massless states arise in the DLCQ formulation for certain discretizations.Comment: 14 pages, REVTE

Anomalously light states in super-Yang-Mills Chern-Simons theory

Inspired by our previous finding that supersymmetric Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons (SYM-CS) theory dimensionally reduced to 1+1 dimensions possesses approximate Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) states, we study the analogous phenomenon in the three-dimensional theory. Approximate BPS states in two dimensions have masses which are nearly independent of the Yang-Mills coupling and proportional to their average number of partons. These states are a reflection of the exactly massless BPS states of the underlying pure SYM theory. In three dimensions we find that this mechanism leads to anomalously light bound states. While the mass scale is still proportional to the average number of partons times the square of the CS coupling, the average number of partons in these bound states changes with the Yang-Mills coupling. Therefore, the masses of these states are not independent of the coupling. Our numerical calculations are done using supersymmetric discrete light-cone quantization (SDLCQ).Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, LaTe

Numerical Simulations of N=(1,1) SYM{1+1} with Large Supersymmetry Breaking

We consider the $N=(1,1)$ SYM theory that is obtained by dimensionally reducing SYM theory in 2+1 dimensions to 1+1 dimensions and discuss soft supersymmetry breaking. We discuss the numerical simulation of this theory using SDLCQ when either the boson or the fermion has a large mass. We compare our result to the pure adjoint fermion theory and pure adjoint boson DLCQ calculations of Klebanov, Demeterfi, and Bhanot and of Kutasov. With a large boson mass we find that it is necessary to add additional operators to the theory to obtain sensible results. When a large fermion mass is added to the theory we find that it is not necessary to add operators to obtain a sensible theory. The theory of the adjoint boson is a theory that has stringy bound states similar to the full SYM theory. We also discuss another theory of adjoint bosons with a spectrum similar to that obtained by Klebanov, Demeterfi, and Bhanot.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure