Superlight gravitinos in electron-photon collisions

Motivated by recent studies of supersymmetry in higher-dimensional spaces, we discuss the experimental signatures of a superlight gravitino (mass less than or equal to 10(-3) eV). We concentrate on the process e(-)gamma --> (e) over tilde (R)(G) over tilde as a probe of supersymmetry, where a single heavy superpartner and a superlight gravitino are produced. The fact that there is only one heavy superpartner in the final state in this process would require a lower center-of-mass energy for on-shell production compared to conventional pair production. For instance, for a 500 GeV machine, we find that a positive signal will be found if the supersymmetry breaking scale is less than about 2 TeV. If no positive signal is found, this process puts a bound on the supersymmetry breaking scale. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.