Gaugino condensates and chiral-linear duality: an effective lagrangian analysis

We show how to formulate the phenomenon of guagino condensation in a super-Yang-Mills theory with a field-dependent gauge coupling described with a linear multiplet. We prove the duality equivalence of this approach with the more familiar formulation using a chiral superfield. In so doing, we resolve a longstanding puzzle as to how a linear-multiplet formulation can be consistent with the dynamical breaking of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry which is thought to occur once the gauginos condense. In our approach, the composite gauge degrees of freedom are described by a real vector superfield, V, rather than the chiral superfield that is obtained in the traditional dual formulation. Our dualization, when applied to the case of several condensing gauge groups, provides strong evidence that this duality survives strong-coupling effects in string theory.