When supersymmetry is broken by condensates with a single condensing gauge group, there is a nonanomalous R-symmetry that prevents the universal axion from acquiring a mass. It has been argued that, in the context of supergravity, higher dimension operators will break this symmetry and may generate an axion mass too large to allow the identification of the universal axion with the QCD axion. We show that such contributions to the axion mass are highly suppressed in a class of models where the effective Lagrangian for gaugino and matter condensation respects modular invariance (T-duality).

We outline a program for the calculation of the one-loop effective action

for generic supergravity theories in superspace. The first step involves the

construction of a conformal superspace (with the conformal algebra as the

structure group) to facilitate the algebraic manipulations necessary to

deal with the underlying conformal coupling of chiral matter to supergravity.

Next we show how to expand actions to second order in the fundamental

quantum variables to allow one-loop computations. Finally, we describe how

the chiral loops may be handled by explicitly calculating their divergences

and anomalies.