51824208
Topological entanglement of polymers and Chern-Simons field theory
In recent times some interesting field-theoretical descriptions of the statistical mechanics of entangling polymers have been proposed by various authors. In these approaches, a single test polymer fluctuating in a background of static polymers or in a lattice of obstacles is considered. The extension to the case in which the configurations of two or more polymers become non-static is not straightforward unless their trajectories are severely constrained. In this paper we present another approach, based on Chern-Simons field theory, which is able to describe the topological entanglements of two fluctuating polymers in terms of gauge fields and second quantized replica fields.
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.
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.
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.
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.
118493409
D-Brane Probes in the Matrix Model
Abstract Recently, a new approach to large N gauge theories, based on a generalization of the concept of D-brane probes to any gauge field theory, was proposed. In the present note, we compute the probe action in the one matrix model with a quartic potential. This allows to illustrate several non-trivial aspects of the construction in an exactly solvable set-up. One of our main goal is to test the bare bubble approximation. The approximate free energy found in this approximation, which can be derived from a back-of-an-envelope calculation, matches the exact result for all values of the 't Hooft coupling with a surprising accuracy. Another goal is to illustrate the remarkable properties of the equivariant partial gauge-fixing procedure, which is at the heart of the formalism. For this we use a general ξ -gauge to compute the brane action. The action depends on ξ in a very non-trivial way, yet we show explicitly that its critical value does not and coincides with twice the free energy, as required by general consistency. This is made possible by a phenomenon of ghost condensation and the spontaneous breaking of the equivariant BRST symmetry.
16340483
The strong coupling spectrum of the Seiberg-Witten theory
Abstract We carefully study the global structure of the solution of the N = 2 supersymmetric pure Yang-Mills theory with gauge group SU(2) obtained by Seiberg and Witten. We exploit itsZsymmetry and describe the curve in moduli space where BPS states can become unstable, separating the strong-coupling from the weak-coupling region. This allows us to obtain the spectrum of stable BPS states in the strong-coupling region: we prove that only the two particles responsible for the singularities of the solution (the magnetic monopole and the dyon of unit electric charge) are present in this region. Our method also permits us to very easily obtain the weak-coupling spectrum, without using semiclassical methods. We discuss how the BPS states disintegrate when crossing the border from the weak- to the strong-coupling region.
118597180
Examples of Emergent Type IIB Backgrounds from Matrices
Abstract We study models of emergent space associated with the Coulomb branch, non-commutative and β deformations of the N = 4 super-Yang–Mills theory, extending a previous work on the undeformed conformal case. The idea is to compute the effective action for D-instantons from the microscopic four-dimensional open-string description and to compare with the non-abelian D-instanton action in the dual ten-dimensional supergravity background. To linear order in the deformation parameter, the D-instantons can probe the full space–time geometry and we can derive all the supergravity fields in this way. We find a perfect match with the known supergravity solutions, including for the Neveu–Schwarz and Ramond–Ramond forms.
119318242
Partial Gauge Fixing and Equivariant Cohomology
Given a gauge theory with gauge group G, it is sometimes useful to find an equivalent formulation in terms of a nontrivial gauge subgroup H⊂G. This amounts to fixing the gauge partially from G down to H. We study this problem systematically, both from the algebraic and from the path integral points of view. We find that the usual BRST cohomology must be replaced by an equivariant version and that the ghost Lagrangian must always include quartic ghost terms, even at tree level. Both the Cartan and Weil models for equivariant cohomology play a role and find natural interpretations within the physics framework. Applications include the construction of D-brane models of emergent space, the 't Hooft Abelian projection scenario in quantum chromodynamics and the formulation of the low-energy effective theories of grand unified models. © 2014 American Physical Society.
17626338
Spectral asymmetry and supersymmetry
Fractional charges, and in particular the spectral asymmetry eta of certain Dirac operators, can appear in the central charge of supersymmetric field theories. This yields unexpected analyticity constraints on eta from which classic results can be recovered in an elegant way. The method could also be applied in the context of string theory.