Supersymmetric gradient flow in 4d N=1 SQCD

Abstract: A supersymmetric gradient flow for four-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) is proposed. The flow equation is given in both the superfield and component fields of the Wess-Zumino gauge. The superfield flow equation is defined for each of the gauge and matter multiplets individually. Adding a gauge fixing, the component-field flow equation is defined in the Wess-Zumino gauge in a gauge covariant manner. We find that the latter equation is supersymmetric in a sense that the commutator of the flow time derivative and the supersymmetry transformation vanishes up to a gauge transformation. We also discuss a simplified flow by using the gradient of supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) action instead of using SQCD action to define a gauge multiplet flow.