Graceful exit via monopoles in a theory with O'Raifeartaigh type supersymmetry breaking

We study the stability of supersymmetry breaking metastable vacua and supersymmetric vacua in the presence of solitons. The metastable vacua of supersymmetric QCD and those found elsewhere such as in models based on the SU (5) grand unified group support the existence of topological solitons. The vacua containing such topological defects can become unstable against decay into lower energy configurations. We show for a specific model that a finite region of the available parameter space of couplings becomes disallowed due to the presence of monopoles. In a manner similar to previous studies based on cosmic strings, it is shown that soliton solutions arising in supersymmetric theories can put constraints on the range of allowed values of the couplings arising in the theories. Implications for cosmology are discussed. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.