Supersymmetry breaking in M-theory and gaugino condensation Original Research Article

We argue that supersymmetry breaking by gaugino condensation in the strongly coupled heterotic string can be described by an analogue of Scherk-Schwarz compactification on the eleventh dimension in M-theory. The M-theory scale is identified with the gauge coupling unification mass, whereas the radius of the eleventh dimension ϱ is at an intermediate scale ϱ−1 ∼ 1012 GeV. At the lowest order, supersymmetry is broken only in the gravitational and moduli sector at a scale m32 ∼ ϱ−1, while it is mediated by gravitational interactions to the observable world. Computation of the mass splittings yields in general a hierarchy of soft masses at the TeV scale (∼ ϱ−2/MP) with matter scalars much heavier than gauginos.