Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2016
Volume 61, Number 6
Saturday–Tuesday, April 16–19, 2016; Salt Lake City, Utah
Session U11: Field Theory |
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Sponsoring Units: DPF Chair: Marcela Carena, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Room: 250C |
Monday, April 18, 2016 3:30PM - 3:42PM |
U11.00001: Aspects of SUSY CFTs and RG flows Kenneth Intriligator, Clay Cordova, Thomas Dumitrescu Supersymmetry is used to explore aspects of quantum field theories in various spacetime dimensions. There are interacting, supersymmetric conformal field theories (SCFTs) in six and lower spacetime dimensions. We have argued for the a-theorem in six dimensions, by using susy to connect the conformal a-anomaly to the six-dimensional analog of 't Hooft anomalies, for the R-symmetry and gravity. We also use strong constraints on the unitary representations of the superconformal group to classify supersymmetry preserving deformations of SCFTs in various spacetime dimensions. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 3:42PM - 3:54PM |
U11.00002: Deformations of $W_{A,D,E}$ SCFTs Emily Nardoni, Kenneth Intriligator We discuss aspects of theories with superpotentials given by Arnold's $A,D,E$ singularities, particularly the various novelties that arise when the fields are matrices. E.g. we discuss aspects of the classical non-truncation of the chiral ring, flat directions, and the non-Abelian representations of the deformed chiral ring in the $D$ and $E$ cases. We focus on 4d ${\cal N}=1$ variants of susy QCD, with $U(N_c)$ or $SU(N_c)$ gauge group, $N_f$ fundamental flavors, and adjoint matter fields $X$ and $Y$ appearing in $W_{A,D,E}(X,Y)$ superpotentials. Many of our considerations also apply in other possible contexts for matrix-variable $W_{A,D,E}$. The 4d $W_{A,D,E}$ SQCD-type theories RG flow to superconformal field theories, and there are proposed duals in the literature for the $W_{A_k}$, $W_{D_k}$, and $W_{E_7}$ cases. As we review, the $W_{D_\text{even}}$ and $W_{E_7}$ duals rely on a conjectural, quantum truncation of the chiral ring. We explore these issues by considering various deformations of the $W_{A,D,E}$ superpotentials, and the resulting RG flows and IR theories. Rather than finding supporting evidence for the quantum-truncation and $W_{D_\text{even}}$ and $W_{E_7}$ duals, we note some challenging evidence to the contrary. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 3:54PM - 4:06PM |
U11.00003: Positive Energy Conditions in 4D Conformal Field Theory Kara Farnsworth, Markus Luty, Valentina Prilepina We argue that all consistent 4D quantum field theories obey a spacetime-averaged weak energy inequality $\avg{T^{00}} \ge -C/L^4$, where $L$ is the size of the smearing region, and $C$ is a positive constant that depends on the theory. If this condition is violated, the theory has states that are indistinguishable from states of negative total energy by any local measurement, and we expect instabilities or other inconsistencies. We apply this condition to 4D conformal field theories, and find that it places constraints on the OPE coefficients of the theory. The constraints we find are weaker than the ``conformal collider'' constraints of Hofman and Maldacena. We speculate that there may be theories that violate the Hofman-Maldacena bounds, but satisfy our bounds. In 3D CFTs, the only constraint we find is equivalent to the positivity of 2-point function of the energy-momentum tensor, which follows from unitarity. Our calculations are performed using momentum-space Wightman functions, which are remarkably simple functions of momenta, and may be of interest in their own right. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 4:06PM - 4:18PM |
U11.00004: Effective Potential prediction of the sign of Vacuum Condensate within $\mathcal{PT-}$Symmetric and non-Hermitian Quantum Field Theories Abouzeid Shalaby In the literature there exists a confusion about the sign of the vacuum condensate of $\mathcal{PT-}$Symmetric and non-Hermitian field theories. Some techniques predict only negative imaginary vacuum condensate for the class of Hamiltonian $(-(i\phi)^{\alpha})$ while others admit both signs of imaginary vacuum condensate. In this work, we stress this problem by calculating the the effective potential for the cases $\alpha=3$ and $\alpha=4$. Compared to the numerical calculations in the literature, we found very accurate results for the absolute value of the vacuum condensate. However, the effective potential technique we used predicts negative imaginary condensate for the $\alpha=3$ case but it admits both positive as well as negative imaginary condensate for the $\alpha=4$ case. We show that the negative sign reported in the literature for $\alpha=4$ was due the constraint set on the complex contour used to be in the lower half of the complex plane while one can show that contours from the above half would not change the physical content of the theory. For $\alpha=3$ on the other hand, only complex contours from the lower half of the complex plane can lead to a stable effective potential. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 4:18PM - 4:30PM |
U11.00005: Field Theory for Multi-Particle System Shouhong Wang, Tian Ma The main objectives of this talk are 1) to introduce some basic postulates for quantum multi-particle systems, and 2) to develop a universal field theory for interacting multi-particle systems coupling both particle fields and interacting fields. By carefully examining the nature of interactions between multi-particles, we conclude that multi-particle systems must obey i) the gauge symmetry, ii) the principle of interaction dynamics (PID), and iii) the principle of representation invariance (PRI). Intuitively, PID takes the variation of the action functional under energy-momentum conservation constraint, offers a different and natural way of introducing Higgs fields, and is also required by the presence of dark matter and dark energy and the quark confinement. PRI requires that the SU(N) gauge theory be independent of representations of SU(N). Based on these principles, a few basic postulates for multi-particle systems are introduced in this talk, leading to a field theory for interacting multi-particle systems. A direct consequence of the field theory is the derivation of general atomic spectrum equations. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 4:30PM - 4:42PM |
U11.00006: Algebraic Characterization of the Vacuum in Light-Front Field Theory Marc Herrmann, Wayne Polyzou In the light-front formulation of quantum field theory, the vacuum vector of an interacting field theory has a relatively simple relationship to the vacuum of a free field theory. This is a benefit over the usual equal-time formulation where the interacting vacuum vector has infinite norm with respect to the Hilbert space of the free field theory. By describing the vacuum as a positive linear functional on an operator algebra constructed from free fields with two distinct masses, it can be demonstrated that the complications associated with adding dynamics to the vacuum of a free theory are not present in the construction of the light-front vacuum. Instead, the complications are moved into defining a subalgebra of the light-front algebra which corresponds to the physically relevant algebra of local fields. These results can then be applied to interacting fields by first describing them in terms of asymptotic in or out fields. However, in order to treat local operators products, the vacuum functional may need to be modified to include states with zero eigenvalue of the generator of translations in the direction along the light front, $x^-=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(x^0-x^3\right)$. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2016 4:42PM - 4:54PM |
U11.00007: The Casimir Effect Fallacy: Casimir's Zero Point Energy has Infinite Mass, is not Conserved, and is Falsely based on Euler's Formula. The Fallacy No Journal Accepted, that Resonates to No End in Journals Vic Dannon To compute the Zero Point Energy potential, Casimir applied the Euler summation formula for the difference between a series and an integral of a function. To that end, he defined the zero point energy between distant plates by integrating a double integral multiplied by $1/a^{3}$, where $a$ is an infinite length measured by zillion meters, and defined the zero point energy between very close plates by summing on a double integral multiplied by $1/a^{3}$, where $a$ stands for an infinitesimal length measured by microns ($10^{-6}\mbox{meters})$. Since the $a$ in each instance is different, the function is different, and the Euler Summation Formula does not apply. The experiments that confirmed the Casimir force, could have measured the Van der Walls forces, or even Atomic forces between the two plates, or just noise. Vacuum Zero Point Energy stems from the urge to fill the Vacuum: The Zero-Point-Energy-Waves are an infinite-mass Aether. The Force measured in the laboratories cannot be Casimir's Zero Point Energy Force. The measured Force-values cannot fit Energy-values that were obtained by error, and do not exist Posted to www.gauge-institute.org http://www.gauge-institute.org/ZPE/ZPE-Casimir.pdf [Preview Abstract] |
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