Screening in Supersymmetric Gauge Theories in Two Dimensions

We show that the string tension in N = 1 two-dimensional super Yang-Mills theory vanishes independently of the representation of the quark anti-quark external source. We argue that this result persists in SQCD2 and in two-dimensional gauge theories with extended supersymmetry or in chiral invariant models with at least one massless dynamical fermion. We also compute the string tension for the massive Schwinger model, as a demonstration of the method of the calculation. e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] work supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Einstein Center for Theoretical Physics at the Weizmann Institute.