Decoupling of the ε-scalar mass in softly broken supersymmetry

It has been shown recently that the introduction of an unphysical ε-scalar mass m̃ is necessary for the proper renormalization of softly broken supersymmetric theories by dimensional reduction (DR). In these theories, both the two-loop β functions of the scalar masses and their one-loop finite corrections depend on m${\mathrm{̃}}^2$. We find, however, that the dependence on m${\mathrm{̃}}^2$ can be completely removed by slightly modifying the DR renormalization scheme. We also show that previous DR calculations of one-loop corrections in supersymmetry which ignored the m${\mathrm{̃}}^2$ contribution correspond to using this modified scheme.