One-loop quantum correction to the mass of the supersymmetric Kink in (1 + 1) dimensions using the exact spectra and the phase shifts

Abstract

We compute the quantum correction to the mass of the kink at the one-loop level in (1+1) dimensions with minimal supersymmetry. In this paper we discuss this issue from the Casimir energy perspective using phase shifts along with the mode number cut-off regularization method. Exact solutions and in particular an exact expression for the phase shifts are already available for the bosonic sector. In this paper we derive analogous exact results for the fermionic sector. Most importantly, we derive a unique and exact expression for the fermionic phase shift, using the exact solutions for the continuum parts of the spectrum and a prescription we had introduced earlier. We use the strong and weak forms of the Levinson theorem merely for checking the consistency of our phase shifts and results, and not as an integral part of our procedure. Moreover, we find that the properties of the fermionic spectrum, including bound and continuum states, are independent of the magnitude of the Yukawa coupling constant $\lambda$, and that the dynamical mass generation occurs at the tree level. These are all due to SUSY and are in sharp contrast to analogous models without SUSY, such as the Jackiw-Rebbi model, where $\lambda$ is a free parameter. We use the renormalized perturbation theory and find the counterterm which is consistent with supersymmetry. We show that this procedure is sufficient to obtain the accepted value for the one-loop quantum correction to the mass of the SUSY kink which is $-\frac{m}{2\pi}$.