International Journal of Modern Physics A

This review summarizes the program in the physics of the top quark being pursued at Fermilab's Tevatron proton–antiproton collider at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. More than a decade after the discovery of the top quark at the two collider detectors CDF and D0, the Tevatron has been the only accelerator to produce top quarks and to study them directly.

The Tevatron's increased luminosity and center-of-mass energy offer the possibility to scrutinize the properties of this heaviest fundamental particle through new measurements that were not feasible before, such as the first evidence for electroweak production of top quarks and the resulting direct constraints on the involved couplings. Better measurements of top quark properties provide more stringent tests of predictions from the SM of elementary particle physics. In particular, the improvement in measurements of the mass of the top quark, with the latest uncertainty of 0.7% marking the most precisely measured quark mass to date, further constrains the prediction of the mass of the still to be discovered Higgs boson.

We study the detailed derivation of the multiple D2-brane effective action from multiple M2-branes in the Bagger–Lambert–Gustavsson (BLG) theory and the Aharony–Bergman–Jafferis–Maldacena (ABJM) theory by employing the novel Higgs mechanism. We show explicitly that the high-order F3 and F4 terms are commutator terms, and conjecture that all the high-order terms are commutator terms. Because the commutator terms can be treated as the covariant derivative terms, these high-order terms do not contribute to the multiple D2-brane effective action. Inspired by the derivation of a single D2-brane from a M2-brane, we consider the curved M2-branes and introduce an auxiliary field. Integrating out the auxiliary field, we indeed obtain the correct high-order F4 terms in the D2-brane effective action from the BLG theory and the ABJM theory with SU(2) × SU(2) gauge symmetry, but we cannot obtain the correct high-order F4 terms from the ABJM theory with U(N) × U(N) and SU(N) × SU(N) gauge symmetries for N > 2. We also briefly comment on the (gauged) BF membrane theory.

We obtain from the quark–gluon dynamics the eightfold way baryon spectrum exactly in an imaginary time functional integral formulation of 3+1 lattice QCD with Wilson's action in the strong coupling regime (small hopping parameter 0 < κ ≪ 1 and much smaller plaquette coupling ). The model has SU(3)c local gauge and global SU(3)f flavor symmetries. A decoupling of the hyperplane method naturally unveils the form of the baryon composite fields. In the subspace of the physical Hilbert space of vectors with an odd number of quarks, the baryons are associated with isolated dispersion curves in the energy–momentum spectrum. Spectral representations are derived for the two-baryon correlations, which allow us to detect the energy–momentum spectrum and particles as complex momentum space singularities. The spin 1/2 octet and spin 3/2 decuplet baryons have asymptotic mass -3ln κ and for each baryon there is an antibaryon with identical spectral properties. An auxiliary function method is used to obtain convergent expansions for the masses after subtracting the singular part -3ln κ. The nonsingular part of the mass is analytic in κ and β, i.e. the expansions are controlled to all orders. For β = 0, all the masses have the form M = -3ln κ - 3κ3/4 + κ6r(κ), with r(κ) real analytic. Although we have no Lorentz symmetry in our lattice model, we show that there is a partial restoration of the continuous rotational symmetry at zero spatial momentum, which implies that for all members of the octet (decuplet) r(κ) is the same. So, there is no mass splitting within the octet and within the decuplet. However, there is an octet–decuplet mass difference of at β = 0; the splitting persists for β ≠ 0. We also obtain the (anti)baryon dispersion curves which admit the representation , where and is of . For the octet, is jointly analytic in κ and in each pj, for small . A new local symmetry, which we call spin flip, is used to establish constraints for the matrix-valued two-baryon correlation and show that all the octet dispersion curves are the same and that the four decuplet dispersion curves are pairwise-identical and depend only on the modulus of the spin z-component. Using a correlation subtraction method we show that the spectrum generated by the baryon and antibaryon fields is the only spectrum, in the odd quark subspace of physical states, up to near the baryon–meson threshold of ≈ -5ln κ. Combining this result with a similar result for the mesons, with mass ≈ -2ln κ, shows that the only spectrum in the entire space of states, up to near the two-meson threshold of ≈ -4ln κ, is generated by the eightfold way hadrons. Hence, for 0 < κ ≪ β ≪ 1, we have shown confinement up to near this threshold.

Conformal algebra on R × S3 derived from quantized gravitational fields is examined. The model we study is a renormalizable quantum theory of gravity in four dimensions described by a combined system of the Weyl action for the traceless tensor mode and the induced Wess–Zumino action managing nonperturbative dynamics of the conformal factor in the metric field. It is shown that the residual diffeomorphism invariance in the radiation⁺ gauge is equal to the conformal symmetry, and the conformal transformation preserving the gauge-fixing condition that forms a closed algebra quantum mechanically is given by a combination of naive conformal transformation and a certain field-dependent gauge transformation. The unitarity issue of gravity is discussed in the context of conformal field theory. We construct physical states by solving the conformal invariance condition and calculate their scaling dimensions. It is shown that the conformal symmetry mixes the positive-metric and the negative-metric modes and thus the negative-metric mode does not appear independently as a gauge invariant state at all.

Hawking's area theorem can be understood from a quasistationary process in which a black hole accretes positive energy matter, independent of the details of the gravity action. I use this process to study the dynamics of the inner as well as the outer horizons for various black holes which include the recently discovered exotic black holes and three-dimensional black holes in higher derivative gravities as well as the usual Banados–Teitelboim–Zanelli (BTZ) black hole and the Kerr black hole in four dimensions. I find that the area for the inner horizon "can decrease," rather than increase, with the quasistationary process. However, I find that the area for the outer horizon "never decrease" such as the usual area theorem still works in our examples, though this is quite nontrivial in general. I also find that the recently proposed new entropy formulae for the above mentioned, recently discovered black holes satisfy the second law of thermodynamics.

We show a physical realization of the Langlands duality in correlation functions of WZNW model. We derive a dual version of the Stoyanovky–Riabult–Teschner (SRT) formula that relates the correlation function of the WZNW and the dual Liouville theory to investigate the level duality k - 2 → (k - 2)-1 in the WZNW correlation functions. Then, we show that such a dual version of the -Liouville relation can be interpreted as a particular case of a biparametric family of nonrational conformal field theories (CFT's) based on the Liouville correlation functions, which was recently proposed by Ribault. We study symmetries of these new nonrational CFT's and compute correlation functions explicitly by using the free field realization to see how a generalized Langlands duality manifests itself in this framework. Finally, we suggest an interpretation of the SRT formula as realizing the Drinfeld–Sokolov Hamiltonian reduction. Again, the Hamiltonian reduction reveals the Langlands duality in the WZNW model. Our new identity for the correlation functions of WZNW model may yield a first step to understand quantum geometric Langlands correspondence yet to be formulated mathematically.

The Cauchy horizon forming colliding wave solution due to Chandrasekhar and Xanthopoulos (CX) has been generalized by inclusion of the NUT (Newman–Unti–Tamburino) parameter. This is done by transforming the part of the inner horizon region of a Kerr–Newman–NUT black hole into the space of colliding waves. By taking appropriate combination of Killing vectors and analytically extending beyond the Cauchy horizon the timelike hyperbolic singularities are resolved as well. This provides another example of its kind among the type-D metrics with special emphasis on the role of the NUT parameter. Finally, it is shown that horizons of colliding higher-dimensional plane waves obtained from the black p-branes undergoes a similar procedure of analytic extension.

We extend our Wilsonian renormalization group (RG) analysis on the pionless nuclear effective field theory in the two-nucleon sector in two ways; on the one hand, (1) we enlarge the space of operators up to including those of in the S waves, and, on the other hand, (2) we consider the RG flows in higher partial waves (P and D waves). In the larger space calculations, we find, in addition to nontrivial fixed points, two "fixed lines" and a "fixed surface" which are related to marginal operators. In the higher partial wave calculations, we find similar phase structures to that of the S waves, but there are two relevant directions in the P waves at the nontrivial fixed points and three in the D waves. We explain the physical meaning of the P-wave phase structure by explicitly calculating the low-energy scattering amplitude. We also discuss the relation between the Legendre flow equation which we employ and the RG equation by Birse, McGovern and Richardson, and possible implementation of power divergence subtraction in higher partial waves.

A fundamental action, representing a mass dimension-transmuting operator between Dirac and ELKO spinor fields, is performed on the Dirac Lagrangian, in order to lead it into the ELKO Lagrangian. Such a dynamical transformation can be seen as a natural extension of the Standard Model that incorporates dark matter fields. The action of the mass dimension-transmuting operator on a Dirac spinor field, that defines and introduces such a mapping, is shown to be a composition of the Dirac operator and the nonunitary transformation that maps Dirac spinor fields into ELKO spinor fields, defined in J. Math. Phys.48, 123517 (2007). This paper gives allowance for ELKO, as a candidate to describe dark matter, to be incorporated in the Standard Model. It is intended to present for the first time, up to our knowledge, the dynamical character of a mapping between Dirac and ELKO spinor fields, transmuting the mass dimension of spin one-half fermionic fields from 3/2 to 1 and from 1 to 3/2.