Narrow Results

We study the cohomological physics of fivebranes in type II and heterotic string theory. We give an interpretation of the one-loop term in type IIA, which involves the first and second Pontrjagin classes of spacetime, in terms of obstructions to having bundles with certain structure groups. Using a generalization of the Green–Schwarz anomaly cancellation in heterotic string theory which demands the target space to have a String structure, we observe that the "magnetic dual" version of the anomaly cancellation condition can be read as a higher analog of String structure, which we call Fivebrane structure. This involves lifts of orthogonal and unitary structures through higher connected covers which are not just 3- but even 7-connected. We discuss the topological obstructions to the existence of Fivebrane structures. The dual version of the anomaly cancellation points to a relation of string and Fivebrane structures under electric-magnetic duality.

The chiral anomaly have been studied in light-front QCD. In this work, we use the gauge invariant point-splitting technique to derive the chiral anomaly in light-front QCD.

We study the kaon photoproduction associated with the production of the ground state Λ. We investigate the role of K and K* exchange in the t-channel, which can be tested by the photon asymmetry in comparison with experimental data. We find a significant amount of contribution from the one-loop diagram induced by the gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten term for QCD anomaly. This enable us to use coupling constants which are determined in a microscopic way, unlike the previous phenomenological studies where the K* coupling strengths were treated as a free parameter.

The personal view on some recent aspects of average spin and orbital momenta of partons in nucleon is discussed and compared with the previous understanding. The special attention is payed to the strangeness polarization mediated by gluon anomaly and treatment of the strange quarks in a heavy ones in a multiscale nucleon. The crucial role in the orbital structure of nucleon is played by relocalization (Belinfante) invariance and Equivalence Principle (EP). The new manifestation of EP for spin 1 particles is suggested and discussed.

In the present work we have derived the gravitational anomaly from a fundamentally different perspective: it emerges due to the tunneling of particles (in the present case fermions) across the black hole horizon. The latter effect is in fact the Hawking radiation. We have used the analogy of an early idea^17,18 of visualizing chiral gauge anomaly as an effect of spectral flow of the energy levels, from the negative energy Dirac sea, across zero energy level in the presence of gauge interactions. This was extended to conformal anomaly in Ref. 23. In the present work, we exploit the latter formalism in black hole physics where we interpret crossing the horizon of black hole (the zero energy level) as a spectral flow since it is also accompanied by a change of sign in the energy of the particle. Furthermore, Hawking radiation induces a shrinking of the radius of the horizon^15,16 which reminds us of a similar rearrangement in the Fermi level generated by the spectral flow.^17,18,21 Hence in our formulation the negative energy states below horizon play a similar role as the Dirac sea. We successfully recover the gravitational anomaly.

We suggest the model with the gauge group ⋯ ⊗ SU(6)⊗ SU(5) ⊗ SU(4)⊗ SU(3)⊗ SU(2)⊗ U(1). This group is the infinite continuation of the gauge group SU(4)⊗ SU(3)⊗ SU(2) ⊗ U(1) of Farhi–Susskind model. The constructed model contains fermions from the fundamental representations of any SU(N) subgroups of the gauge group. In the construction of the model we use essentially the requirement that it possesses an additional discrete symmetry that is the continuation of the Z₆ symmetry of the Standard Model. It has been found that there exists such a choice of the hypercharges of the fermions that the chiral anomaly is absent while the symmetry is preserved.

In a Hamiltonian approach to anomalies, parity and time-reversal symmetries can be restored by introducing suitable impure (or mixed) states. However, the expectation values of observables such as the Hamiltonian diverges in such impure states. Here, we show that such divergent expectation values can be treated within a renormalization group (RG) framework, leading to a set of β-functions in the moduli space of the operators representing the observables. This leads to well-defined expectation values of the Hamiltonian in a phase where the impure state restores the P and T symmetry. We also show that this RG procedure leads to a mass gap in the spectrum. Such a framework may be relevant for long wavelength descriptions of condensed matter systems such as the quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect.

The response of fermionic system to external gauge fields is defined by current–current correlation function Π_μν(q, q₀). Transport properties of different physical quantities are determined by zero energy–momentum limit of it. As it is known close to half-filling the physics of graphene is described by (2+1)-dimensional Dirac theory. In this paper, we calculate current–current correlation function in Dirac theory in a presence of chemical potential η and gap m.

Anomalous features of models with nonlinear symmetry realization are addressed. It is shown that such models can have anomalous amplitudes breaking of its original symmetry realization. An illustrative example of a simple models with a nonlinear conformal symmetry realization is given. It is argued that the effective action obtained via nonlinear symmetry realization should be used to obtain an anomaly-induced action which is to drive the low-energy dynamics.

The possible anomaly of the tensor current divergence equation in U(1) gauge theories is calculated by means of perturbative method. It is found that the tensor current divergence equation is free of anomalies.

We present a coordinate-invariant approach, based on a Pauli–Villars measure, to the definition of the path integral in two-dimensional conformal field theory. We discuss some advantages of this approach compared to the operator formalism and alternative path integral approaches. We show that our path integral measure is invariant under conformal transformations and field reparametrizations, in contrast to the measure used in the Fujikawa calculation, and we show the agreement, despite different origins, of the conformal anomaly in the two approaches. The natural energy–momentum in the Pauli–Villars approach is a true coordinate-invariant tensor quantity, and we discuss its nontrivial relationship to the corresponding nontensor object arising in the operator formalism, thus providing a novel explanation within a path integral context for the anomalous Ward identities of the latter. We provide a direct calculation of the nontrivial contact terms arising in expectation values of certain energy–momentum products, and we use these to perform a simple consistency check confirming the validity of the change of variables formula for the path integral. Finally, we review the relationship between the conformal anomaly and the energy–momentum two-point functions in our formalism.

The matrix element of the isoscalar axial vector current, , between nucleon states is computed using the external field QCD sum rule method. The external field induced correlator, , is calculated from the spectrum of the isoscalar axial vector meson states. Since it is difficult to ascertain, from QCD sum rule for hyperons, the accuracy of validity of flavor SU(3) symmetry in hyperon decays when strange quark mass is taken into account, we rely on the empirical validity of Cabbibo theory to determine the matrix element between nucleon states. Combining with our calculation of and the well-known nucleon β-decay constant allows us to determine occurring in the Bjorken sum rule. The result is in reasonable agreement with experiment. We also discuss the role of the anomaly in maintaining flavor symmetry and validity of OZI rule.

The triangle anomaly in massless and massive QED is investigated by adopting the symmetry-preserving loop regularization method proposed recently in Refs. 1 and 2. The method is realized in the initial dimension of theory without modifying the original Lagrangian, it preserves symmetries under non-Abelian gauge and Poincaré transformations in spite of the existence of two intrinsic mass scales M_c and μ_s which actually play the roles of UV- and IR-cutoff respectively. The axial-vector–vector-vector (AVV) triangle diagrams in massless and massive QED are evaluated explicitly by using the loop regularization. It is shown that when the momentum k of external state is soft with , m² (m is the mass of loop fermions) and M_c → ∞, both massless and massive QED become anomaly free. The triangle anomaly is found to appear as quantum corrections in the case that m², and M_c → ∞. Especially, it is justified that in the massless QED with μ_s = 0 and M_c → ∞, the triangle anomaly naturally exists as quantum effects in the axial-vector current when the ambiguity caused by the trace of gamma matrices with γ₅ is eliminated by simply using the definition of γ₅. It is explicitly demonstrated how the Ward identity anomaly of currents depends on the treatment for the trace of gamma matrices, which enables us to make a clarification whether the ambiguity of triangle anomaly is caused by the regularization scheme in the perturbation calculations or by the trace of gamma matrices with γ₅. For comparison, an explicit calculation based on the Pauli–Villars regularization and dimensional regularization is carried out and the possible ambiguities of Ward identity anomalies caused from these two regularization schemes are carefully discussed, which include the ambiguities induced by the treatment of the trace of gamma matrices with γ₅ and the action of the external momentum on the amplitude before the direct calculation of the AVV diagram.

We discuss a covariant functional integral approach to the quantization of the bosonic string. In contrast to approaches relying on noncovariant operator regularizations, interesting operators here are true tensor objects with classical transformation laws, even on target spaces where the theory has a Weyl anomaly. Since no implicit noncovariant gauge choices are involved in the definition of the operators, the anomaly is clearly separated from the issue of operator renormalization and can be understood in isolation, instead of infecting the latter as in other approaches. Our method is of wider applicability to covariant theories that are not Weyl invariant, but where covariant tensor operators are desired.

After constructing covariantly regularized vertex operators, we define a class of background-independent path integral measures suitable for string quantization. We show how gauge invariance of the path integral implies the usual physical state conditions in a very conceptually clean way. We then discuss the construction of the BRST action from first principles, obtaining some interesting caveats relating to its general covariance. In our approach, the expected BRST related anomalies are encoded somewhat differently from other approaches. We conclude with an unusual but amusing derivation of the value D = 26 of the critical dimension.

A simple algorithm to calculate the group theory factor entering in anomalies at four and six dimensions for SU(N) and SO(N) groups in terms of the Casimir invariants of their subgroups is presented. Explicit examples of some of the lower dimensional representations of SU(n), n ≤ 5 and SO(10) groups are presented, which could be used for model building in four and six dimensions.

The Jackiw–Rajaraman version of the chiral Schwinger model is studied as a function of the renormalization parameter. The constraints are obtained and they are used to carry out canonical quantization of the model by means of Dirac brackets. By introducing an additional scalar field, it is shown that the model can be made gauge invariant. The gauge invariant model is quantized by establishing a pair of gauge fixing constraints in order that the method of Dirac can be used.

The universal behavior of Hawking radiation is originated in the conformal symmetries of matter fields near the black hole horizon. We explain the origin of this universality based on (1) the gravitational anomaly and its higher-spin generalizations and (2) conformal transformation properties of fluxes.

The development of the Wess–Zumino action or one-cycle is reviewed from the path integral approach. This is related to the occurrence of anomalies in the theory, and generally signifies a breakdown of gauge invariance. The Jackiw–Rajaraman version of the chiral Schwinger model is studied by means of path integrals. It is shown how the model can be made gauge invariant by using a Wess–Zumino term to write a gauge invariant Lagrangian. The model is considered only in bosonized form without any reference to fermions. The constraints are determined. These components are then used to write a path integral quantization for the bosonized form of the model. Some physical quantities and information, in particular, propagators are derived from the path integral.

The generalized version of a lower dimensional model where vector and axial vector interactions get mixed up with different weights is considered. The bosonized version of which does not possess the local gauge symmetry. An attempt has been made here to construct the BRST invariant reformulation of this model using Batalin–Fradlin and Vilkovisky formalism. It is found that the extra field needed to make it gauge invariant turns into Wess–Zumino scalar with appropriate choice of gauge fixing. An application of finite field-dependent BRST and anti-BRST transformation is also made here in order to show the transmutation between the BRST symmetric and the usual nonsymmetric version of the model.

The index theorems relate the gauge field and metric on a manifold to the solution of the Dirac equation on it. In the standard approach, the Dirac operator must be massless to make the chirality operator well defined. In physics, however, the index theorem appears as a consequence of chiral anomaly, which is an explicit breaking of the symmetry. It is then natural to ask if we can understand the index theorems in a massive fermion system which does not have chiral symmetry. In this review, we discuss how to reformulate the chiral anomaly and index theorems with massive Dirac operators, where we find nontrivial mathematical relations between massless and massive fermions. A special focus is placed on the Atiyah–Patodi–Singer index, whose original formulation requires a physicist-unfriendly boundary condition, while the corresponding massive domain-wall fermion reformulation does not. The massive formulation provides a natural understanding of the anomaly inflow between the bulk and edge in particle and condensed matter physics.