119796011
On a path integral description of the dynamics of an inextensible chain and its connection to constrained stochastic dynamics
The dynamics of a freely jointed chain in the continuous limit is described by a field theory which closely resembles the nonlinear sigma model. The generating functional Ψ[J] of this field theory contains nonholonomic constraints, which are imposed by inserting in the path integral expressing Ψ[J] a suitable product of delta functions. The same procedure is commonly applied in statistical mechanics in order to enforce topological conditions on a system of linked polymers. The disadvantage of this method is that the contact with the stochastic process governing the diffusion of the chain is apparently lost. The main goal of this work is to re-establish this contact. For this purpose, it is shown here that the generating functional Ψ[J] coincides with the generating functional of the correlation functions of the solutions of a constrained Langevin equation. In the discrete case, this Langevin equation describes as expected the Brownian motion of beads connected together by links of fixed length.
18373561
Biharmonic conformal field theories
Abstract We construct in this paper a new class of conformal field theories (CFT's) in which the fields are characterized by equations of the biharmonic type. All these theories are interacting and admit an explicit Lagrangian formulation. For that reason, the biharmonic CFT's are useful in the study of interacting CFT's and can have also applications in string theories. Besides, it is possible to interprete the biharmonic CFT's as theories of conformal gravity in two dimensions, which represent an alternative to Liouville field theory.
119092707
Dirac quantization of the Chern-Simons field theory in the Coulomb gauge
Abstract In this letter the Chern-Simons field theories are studied in the Coulomb gauge using the Dirac's canonical formalism for constrained systems. As a strategy, we first work out the constraints and then quantize, replacing the Dirac brackets with quantum commutators. We find that the Chern-Simons field theories become two dimensional models with no propagation along the time direction. Moreover, we prove that, despite of the presence of non-trivial self-interactions in the gauge fixed functional, the commutation relations between the fields are trivial at any order in perturbation theory in the absence of couplings with matter fields. If these couplings are present, instead, the commutation relations become rather involved, but it is still possible to study their main properties and to show that they vanish at the tree level.
121604245
Performance of the TOTEM neurochip in Higgs search
We present preliminary results on the ability of the neurochip TOTEM to discriminate Higgs particles from background in p-p high energy collisions.
121244510
On the stochastic quantization of the Chern-Simons theory
Abstract We present in this paper a refined treatment of the stochastic quantization of Chern-Simons field theories. We show in particular that the naive Langevin equation does not lead to a well-defined equilibrium limit. Our main issue is the introduction of a nontrivial kernel in the Langevin equation which yields the correct equilibrium limit. We restrict ourselves to the free field theory case.
118282052
Toward a Field Theoretical Description of Topologically Linked Polymers
In this work a field theoretical model is constructed to describe the statistical mechanics of an arbitrary number of topologically linked polymers in the context of the analytical approach of Edwards. As an application, the effects of the topological interactions are studied in the one loop approximation. A natural way to include in the treatment also more sophisticated link invariants than the Gauss linking number is outlined.
31469664
FQHE on curved backgrounds, free fields and large N
A bstractWe study the free energy of the Laughlin state on curved backgrounds, starting from the free field representation. A simple argument, based on the computation of the gravitational effective action from the transformation properties of Green functions under the change of the metric, allows to compute the first three terms of the expansion in large magnetic field. The leading and subleading contributions are given by the Aubin-Yau and Mabuchi functionals respectively, whereas the Liouville action appears at next-to-next-to-leading order. We also derive a path integral representation for the remainder terms. They correspond to a large mass expansion for a related interacting scalar field theory and are thus given by local polynomials in curvature invariants.
16567547
Exact multiplets of spontaneously broken discrete global symmetries: The example of N=2 SUSY QCD
In these notes, we emphasize the r\^ole of spontaneous broken global discrete symmetries acting on the moduli space of $N=2$ susy Yang-Mills theories and show how they can be used, together with the BPS condition, as a spectrum generating symmetry. In particular, in the strong-coupling region, all BPS states come in multiplets of this broken symmetry. This played a key r\^ole in the determination of the strong-coupling spectra.
117371335
Random Kähler Metrics
Abstract The purpose of this article is to propose a new method to define and calculate path integrals over metrics on a Kahler manifold. The main idea is to use finite dimensional spaces of Bergman metrics, as an approximation to the full space of Kahler metrics. We use the theory of large deviations to decide when a sequence of probability measures on the spaces of Bergman metrics tends to a limit measure on the space of all Kahler metrics. Several examples are considered.
17016967
The chiral ring and the periods of the resolvent
Abstract The strongly coupled vacua of an N = 1 supersymmetric gauge theory can be described by imposing quantization conditions on the periods of the gauge theory resolvent, or equivalently by imposing factorization conditions on the associated N = 2 Seiberg–Witten curve (the so-called strong-coupling approach). We show that these conditions are equivalent to the existence of certain relations in the chiral ring, which themselves follow from the fact that the gauge group has a finite rank. This provides a conceptually very simple explanation of why and how the strongly coupled physics of N = 1 theories, including fractional instanton effects, chiral symmetry breaking and confinement, can be derived from purely semi-classical calculations involving instantons only.
119183237
Gauge theories, D-branes and holography
Abstract Based on a generalization of the string theoretic concept of D-brane probe, we propose a new approach to large N gauge theories which makes the holographic properties manifest. For any gauge theory, we define from first principles an effective action for a fixed number of “probe” D-branes in the presence of N “background” D-branes on which the gauge theory lives. This effective action is shown to encode all the information about the large N gauge theory. The analysis of the planar diagram expansion which computes the effective action yields a simple and generic mechanism explaining the emergence of holographic space dimensions: the probe D-branes move in a higher dimensional dual holographic space–time. The construction yields a new perspective on the notion of bulk space–time locality and draws unexpected links with some aspects of the 't Hooft Abelian projection ideas. It also provides a new non-perturbative approximation scheme, able to capture both the weak and strong coupling regimes. We sketchily illustrate the basic ideas on a few examples, including the pure four dimensional Yang–Mills theory.