Perturbative computation of glueball superpotentials

Using N = 1 superspace techniques in four dimensions we show how to perturbatively compute the superpotential generated for the glueball superfield upon integrating out massive charged fields. The technique applies to arbitrary gauge groups and representations. Moreover, we show that for U(N) gauge theories admitting a large N expansion the computation dramatically simplifies and we prove the validity of the recently proposed recipe for computation of this quantity in terms of planar diagrams of matrix integrals. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.