Anomaly Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking From a String Theory Perspective

The general form of soft supersymmetry breaking terms at one loop for effective supergravity models based on the weakly-coupled heterotic string are presented, with special emphasis on those terms arising from the superconformal anomaly. The standard "anomaly-mediated" soft terms are observed to be a special case of a more general class of models. Some phenomenological consequences are considered and a comparison is made with scenarios involving universal soft terms.