Dynamical SUSY breaking in heterotic M-theory

It is shown that four-dimensional N = 1 supersymmetric QCD with massive flavors in the fundamental representation of the gauge group can be realized in the hidden sector of E-8 x E-8 heterotic string vacua. The number of flavors can be chosen to lie in the range of validity of the free-magnetic dual, using which one can demonstrate the existence of long-lived meta-stable non-supersymmetric vacua. This is shown explicitly for the gauge group Spin(10), but the methods are applicable to Spin(Nc), SU(N-c) and Sp(N-c) for a wide range of color index N-c. Hidden sectors of this type can potentially be used as a mechanism to break supersymmetry within the context of heterotic M-theory. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.