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The ultraviolet completion of gauge theories by higher derivative terms can dramatically change their behavior at high energies. The requirement of asymptotic freedom imposes very stringent constraints that are only satisfied by a small family of higher derivative theories. If the number of derivatives is large enough ($n > 4$) the theory is strongly interacting both at extreme infrared and ultraviolet regimes whereas it remains asymptotically free for a low number of extra derivatives ($n \leqslant 4$). In all cases the theory improves its ultraviolet behavior leading in some cases to ultraviolet finite theories with vanishing $��$-function. The usual consistency problems associated to the presence of extra ghosts in higher derivative theories may not harm asymptotically free theories because in that case the effective masses of such ghosts are running to infinity in the ultraviolet limit., 7 pages, 1 figure. Matches published version

The effect of supercritical charge impurities in graphene is very similar to the supercritical atomic collapses in QED for Z > 137, but with a much lower critical charge. In this sense graphene can be considered as a natural testing ground for the analysis of quantum field theory vacuum instabilities. We analyze the quantum transition from subcritical to supercritical charge regimes in gapped graphene in a common framework that preserves unitarity for any value of charge impurities. In the supercritical regime it is possible to introduce boundary conditions which control the singular behavior at the impurity. We show that for subcritical charges there are also non-trivial boundary conditions which are similar to those that appear in QED for nuclei in the intermediate regime 118, Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures

We argue that the ground state of a field theory, in the presence of charged particles, becomes an entangled state involving an infinity of soft photons. The quantum field vacuum is altered by the passage of a uniformly moving charge, leaving in its wake a different dressed ground state. In this sense a charged particle leaves its electromagnetic scent even after passing by. Unlike in classical electrodynamics the effect of the charge remains even at infinite time. The calculation is done in detail for the ground state of a spacetime wedge, although the results are more general. This agrees in spirit with recent results over the infrared aspects of field theory, although the technical details are different. These considerations open the possibility that the information carried by quantum fields, being nonlocal, does not disappear beyond the horizon of black holes., Comment: 10 pages. Minor corrections and added references

We show that the space of observables of test particles carries a natural Jacobi structure which is manifestly invariant under the action of the Poincar\'{e} group. Poisson algebras may be obtained by imposing further requirements. A generalization of Peierls procedure is used to extend this Jacobi bracket on the space of time-like geodesics on Minkowski space-time., Comment: 13 pages Submitted to MPLA

A geometrical approach to the covariant formulation of the dynamics of relativistic systems is introduced. A realization of Peierls brackets by means of a bivector field over the space of solutions of the Euler-Lagrange equations of a variational principle is presented. The method is illustrated with some relevant examples., 14 pages

The meaning of local observables is poorly understood in gauge theories, not to speak of quantum gravity. As a step towards a better understanding we study asymptotic (infrared) transformation in local quantum physics. Our observables are smeared by test functions, at first vanishing at infinity. In this context we show that the equations of motion can be seen as constraints, which generate a group, the group of space and time dependent gauge transformations.This is one of the main points of the paper. Infrared nontrivial effects are captured allowing test functions which do not vanish at infinity. These extended operators generate a larger group. The quotient of the two groups generate superselection sectors, which differentiate different infrared sectors. The BMS group changes the superselection sector, a result long known for its Lorentz subgroup. It is hence spontaneously broken. Ward identities implied by the gauge invariance of the S-matrix generalize the standard results and lead to charge conservation and low energy theorems. Their validity does not require Lorentz invariance., Comment: 21 pages, 1 reference added and typos corrected

The infrared behavior of quantum field theories confined in bounded domains is strongly dependent on the shape and structure of space boundaries. The most significant physical effect arises in the behaviour of the vacuum energy. The Casimir energy can be attractive or repulsive depending on the nature of the boundary. We calculate the vacuum energy for a massless scalar field confined between two homogeneous parallel plates with the most general type of boundary conditions depending on four parameters. The analysis provides a powerful method to identify which boundary conditions generate attractive or repulsive Casimir forces between the plates. In the interface between both regimes we find a very interesting family of boundary conditions which do not induce any type of Casimir force. We also show that the attractive regime holds far beyond identical boundary conditions for the two plates required by the Kenneth-Klich theorem and that the strongest attractive Casimir force appears for periodic boundary conditions whereas the strongest repulsive Casimir force corresponds to anti-periodic boundary conditions. Most of the analysed boundary conditions are new and some of them can be physically implemented with metamaterials., 21 pages, 11 figures

A new picture of quark confinement based on the instability of Coulomb phase at low energy was introduced by Volodya Gribov in the early nineties. In QCD the effective [Formula: see text] coupling constant can reach very large values in the infrared regime what generates Coulomb phase instabilities. In the Gribov picture the instability leads to a vacuum decay into light quarks for coupling constants [Formula: see text] larger than a critical value [Formula: see text], for SU(N) gauge theories. The instability of Coulomb phase can be derived from first principles in any non-Abelian gauge theory for [Formula: see text], a value which is larger than the Gribov critical value. In this paper we review the analytic derivation of the Gribov mechanism from first principles and analyze the effects of dynamical quarks in the instability of the Coulomb phase. The instabilities associated to light quarks turn out to appear at larger values of [Formula: see text] than the ones induced from pure gluon dynamics, unlike it is expected in the standard Gribov scenario. The analytic results confirm the consistency of the picture where quark confinement is mainly driven by gluonic fluctuations.

In this paper we analyse the structure of the BRST charge of nonlinear superalgebras. We consider quadratic non-linear superalgebras where a commutator (in terms of (super) Poisson brackets) of the generators is a quadratic polynomial of the generators. We find the explicit form of the BRST charge up to cubic order in Faddeev-Popov ghost fields for arbitrary quadratic nonlinear superalgebras. We point out the existence of constraints on structure constants of the superalgebra when the nilpotent BRST charge is quadratic in Faddeev-Popov ghost fields. The general results are illustrated by simple examples of superalgebras., 15 pages, Latex, references added, misprints corrected, comments added

The dynamics of symplectic gauge fields provides a consistent framework for fundamental interactions based on spin three gauge fields. One remarkable property is that symplectic gauge fields only have minimal couplings with gravitational fields and not with any other field of the Standard Model. Interactions with ordinary matter and radiation can only arise from radiative corrections. In spite of the gauge nature of symplectic fields they acquire a mass by the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism which generates Higgs-like mass terms where the gravitational field is playing the role of a Higgs field. Massive symplectic gauge fields weakly interacting with ordinary matter are natural candidates for the dark matter component of the Universe., Comment: 16 pages

When spatial boundaries are inserted, SUSY can be broken. We show that in an $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric theory, all the boundary conditions allowed by self-adjointness of the Hamiltonian break $\mathcal{N}=2$ SUSY while only a few of these boundary conditions preserve $\mathcal{N}=1$ SUSY. We also show that for a subset of the boundary conditions compatible with $\mathcal{N}=1$ SUSY, there exist fermionic ground states which are localized near the boundary., Comment: Section 2 rewritten; Equations corrected; Results unchanged; 15 pages

The highly non-trivial structure of the $\theta$--vacuum encodes many of the fundamental properties of gauge theories. In particular, the response of the vacuum to the $\theta$--term perturbation is sensitive to the existence of confinement, chiral symmetry breaking, etc. We analyze the dependence of the vacuum energy density on theta around two special values, $\theta=0$ and $\theta=\pi$. The existence or not of singular behaviors associated to spontaneous breaking of CP symmetry in these vacua has been a controversial matter for years. We clarify this important problem by means of continuum non-perturbative techniques. The results show the absence of first order cusp singularities on the vacuum energy density at $\theta=0$ and $\theta=\pi$ for some gauge theories. This smooth dependence of the energy on $\theta$ might have implications for long standing cosmological problems like the baryonic asymmetry and the cosmological constant problem., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure. Invited talk at "Renormalization Group and Anomalies in Gravity and Cosmology", Ouro Preto,Brazil, March 17-23, 2003.v2: Added references

The behaviour of 0–vacuum and π–vacuum under CP symmetry is analyzed in two different families of quantum field theories: gauge theories in 4D and [Formula: see text] sigma models in 2D. In particular, the possibility of spontaneous CP symmetry breaking is analyzed by new continuum non-perturbative techniques. In the case of θ = 0–vacuum we find that the dependence of the vacuum energy density on θ around θ = 0 has not a first order cusp singularity, a missing requirement of the proof of the Vafa-Witten theorem. The result is based on the absence of Lee-Yang singularities for pure imaginary values of the θ–parameter. In the case of θ = π the result follows from the analysis of the nodal structure of the vacuum functional in the Schrödinger representation. The dynamics of both theories favors the localization of vacuum nodes at sphalerons instead of classical vacua as corresponds to parity even states. The existence of a dynamical level repulsion between parity even and parity odd states at low energies is the mechanism behind the absence of CP symmetry breaking in π–vacuum.

We analyze the perturbative implications of the most general high derivative approach to quantum gravity based on a diffeomorphism invariant local action. In particular, we consider the super-renormalizable case with a large number of metric derivatives in the action. The structure of ultraviolet divergences is analyzed in some detail. We show that they are independent of the gauge fixing condition and the choice of field reparametrization. The cosmological counterterm is shown to vanish under certain parameter conditions. We elaborate on the unitarity problem of high derivative approaches and the distribution of masses of unphysical ghosts. We also discuss the properties of the low energy regime and explore the possibility of having a multi-scale gravity with different scaling regimes compatible with Einstein gravity at low energies. Finally, we show that the ultraviolet scaling of matter theories is not affected by the quantum corrections of high derivative gravity. As a consequence, asymptotic freedom is stable under those quantum gravity corrections., Comment: LaTeX, 25 pages + 3 ps-figures, Minor typos corrected

The dynamics of the magnetic field in a superconducting phase is described by an effective massive bosonic field theory. If the superconductor is confined in a domain M with boundary \partial M, the boundary conditions of the electromagnetic fields are predetermined by physics. They are time-reversal and also parity invariant for adapted geometry. They lead to edge excitations while in comparison, the bulk energies have a large gap. A similar phenomenon occurs for topological insulators where appropriate boundary conditions for the Dirac Hamiltonian also lead to similar edge states and an 'incompressible bulk'. They give spin-momentum locking as well. In addition time-reversal and parity invariance emerge for adapted geometry. Similar edge states appear in QCD bag models with chiral boundary conditions., Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures

We analyze the finite temperature behaviour of massless conformally coupled scalar fields in homogeneous lens spaces S³/Zp. High and low temperature expansions are explicitly computed and the behavior of thermodynamic quantities under thermal duality is scrutinized. The analysis of the entropy in the high-temperature limit of the different lens spaces points out the appearance of a temperature-independent contribution of topological origin to the entropy. The remaining terms are exponentially suppressed by the temperature. The topological contribution to the entropy appears as a subleading correction to the Stefan-Boltzmann term of the free energy, and can be obtained from the determinant of the lens space conformal Laplacian operator. In the low-temperature limit the leading term in the free energy is the Casimir energy and there is no trace of any power correction in any lens space. In fact, the remaining corrections are always exponentially suppressed by the inverse of the temperature. The duality between the results of both expansions is further analyzed in the paper., Instituto de Física La Plata

In the presence of Chern-Simons interactions the wave functionals of physical states in 2+1-dimensional gauge theories vanish at anumber of nodal points. We show that those nodes are located at some classical configurations which carry a non-trivial magnetic charge. In abelian gauge theories this fact explains why magnetic monopoles are suppressed by Chern-Simons interactions. In non-abelian theories it suggests a relevant role for nodal gauge field configurations in the confinement mechanism of Yang-Mills theories. We show that the vacuum nodes correspond to the chiral gauge orbits of reducible gauge fields with non-trivial magnetic monopole components., 11 pages, revtex, no figures.

The renormalized energy-momentum tensor of vacuum has been deeply explored many years ago. The main result of these studies was that such a tensor should satisfy the conservation laws which reflects the covariance of the theory in the presence of loop corrections. In view of this general result we address two important questions, namely how to implement the momentum cut-off in a covariant way and whether this general result holds in the theory with Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking. In the last case some new interesting details arise and although the calculations are more involved we show that the final result satisfies the conservation laws.

Some perturbative aspects of Chern–Simons theories are analyzed in a geometric-regularization framework. In particular, we show that the independence from the gauge condition of the regularized theory, which insures its global meaning, does impose a new constraint on the parameters of the regularization. The condition turns out to be the one that arises in pure or topologically massive Yang–Mills theories in three-dimensional space–times. One-loop calculations show the existence of nonvanishing finite renormalizations of gauge fields and coupling constant which preserve the topological meaning of Chern–Simons theory. The existence of a (finite) gauge-field renormalization at one-loop level is compensated by the renormalization of gauge transformations in such a way that the one-loop effective action remains gauge-invariant with respect to renormalized gauge transformations. The independence of both renormalizations from the space–time volume indicates the topological nature of the theory.

We analyze a regularization of Chern-Simons theory based on a geometrical interpretation of the functional integral in the covariant formalism. Perturbative calculations show the existence of two independent finite renormalization of the gauge field and the Chern-Simons coupling constant. Both renormalizations do not depend on the space-time volume and the gauge condition. Coupling constant renormalization, unlike gauge field renormalization, is also independent of the regulating parameters. The method opens the possibility of a non-perturbative approach in the covariant formalism.

We analyze the problem of the existing ambiguities in the conformal anomaly in theories with external scalar field in curved backgrounds. In particular, we consider the anomaly of self-interacting massive scalar field theory and of Yukawa model in the massless conformal limit. In all cases the ambiguities are related to finite renormalizations of a local non-minimal terms in the effective action. We point out the generic nature of this phenomenon and provide a general method to identify the theories where such an ambiguity can arise., RevTeX, 10 pages, no figures. Small comment and two references added. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D

We analyze the global theory of boundary conditions for a constrained quantum system with classical configuration space a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ with regular boundary $\Gamma=\partial M$. The space $\CM$ of self-adjoint extensions of the covariant Laplacian on $M$ is shown to have interesting geometrical and topological properties which are related to the different topological closures of $M$. In this sense, the change of topology of $M$ is connected with the non-trivial structure of $\CM$. The space $\CM$ itself can be identified with the unitary group $\CU(L^2(\Gamma,\C^N))$ of the Hilbert space of boundary data $L^2(\Gamma,\C^N)$. A particularly interesting family of boundary conditions, identified as the set of unitary operators which are singular under the Cayley transform, $\CC_-\cap \CC_+$ (the Cayley manifold), turns out to play a relevant role in topology change phenomena. The singularity of the Cayley transform implies that some energy levels, usually associated with edge states, acquire an infinity energy when by an adiabatic change the boundary condition reaches the Cayley submanifold $\CC_-$. In this sense topological transitions require an infinite amount of quantum energy to occur, although the description of the topological transition in the space $\CM$ is smooth. This fact has relevant implications in string theory for possible scenarios with joint descriptions of open and closed strings. In the particular case of elliptic self--adjoint boundary conditions, the space $\CC_-$ can be identified with a Lagrangian submanifold of the infinite dimensional Grassmannian. The corresponding Cayley manifold $\CC_-$ is dual of the Maslov class of $\CM$., Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures, harvmac

We study the relationship between the holomorphic unitary connection of Chern-Simons theory with temporal Wilson lines and the Richardson's exact solution of the reduced BCS Hamiltonian. We derive the integrals of motion of the BCS model, their eigenvalues and eigenvectors as a limiting case of the Chern-Simons theory., 23 pages

The universality of radiative corrections to the gauge coupling constant $k$ of Chern-Simons theory is studied in a very general regularization scheme. We show that the effective coupling constant $k$ induced by radiative corrections depends crucially on the balance between the ultraviolet behavior of scalar and pseudoscalar terms in the regularized action. There are three different regimes. When the ultraviolet leading term is scalar the coupling $k$ is shifted to $k+h^{\vee}$.However, if the leading term is pseudoscalar the shift is $k+s h^{\vee}$ with $s=0$ or $s=2$ depending on the sign of such a term. In the borderline case when the scalar and pseudoscalar terms have the same ultraviolet behavior the shift of $k$ becomes arbitrary (even non-integer) and depends on the parameters of the regularization. We also show that the coefficient of the induced gravitational Chern-Simons term is different for the three regimes and has the same universality properties than the effective coupling constant $k$. The results open the possibility of a connection with non-rational two-dimensional conformal theories in the borderline regime., Comment: 34 pages, harvmac, no changes, 6 Postscript figures (now included)

In an abelian topologically massive gauge theory, any eigenstate of the Hamiltonian can be decomposed into a factor describing massive propagating gauge bosons and a Chern-Simons wave function describing a set of nonpropagating ``topological'' excitations. The energy depends only on the propagating modes, and energy eigenstates thus occur with a degeneracy that can be parametrized by the Hilbert space of the pure Chern-Simons theory. We show that for a {\em nonabelian} topologically massive gauge theory, this degeneracy is lifted: although the Gauss law constraint can be solved with a similar factorization, the Hamiltonian couples the propagating and nonpropagating (topological) modes., Comment: 11 pages

We consider Yang-Mills theory with the Chern-Simons term in 2+1 dimensions. We first formulate via a Dirac constraint analysis the non-degenerate classical hamiltonian system on the cotangent bundle of the gauge orbit space equipped with a non-degenerate symplectic structure which turns out to be different from the canonical one. We then explain the quantization in the canonical formalism, and point out the relationship of the quantization of the parameter involved in the Chern-Simons term and the second cohomology group H 2 ( M , Z ) of the gauge orbit space M .

A new regularization of gauge theories is introduced in a continuum space-time. The regularization is based on a geometric interpretation of the Yang-Mills functional integral in the covariant formalism. Besides a regularization of the classical action by higher covariant derivatives we introduce a regularization of the functional volume element by means of a strong riemannian metric in the space of gauge orbits M and two families of trace class operators defined in the tangent spaces of M . The conditions for the cancellation of ultraviolet divergences are shown to be independent of the gauge condition. This method opens the possibility of a non-perturbative covariant approach to gauge theories in a continuum space-time.

Topologically massive Yang-Mills therries are shown to lack a fermionic sector of quantum states similar to that of non-linear sigma models with a Wess-Zumino term in the lagrangian. The result is based on the topological triviality of the orbits of the rotation group in the space of gauge orbits M , and is not related to the absence of classical solitons.

A continuum regularization of Yang-Mills theory with a possible non-perturbative interpretation is introduced in the euclidean formalism. The regularization preserves Lorentz covariance and gauge invariance and involves not only a regularization of the action but also a regularization of the functional measure in terms of a nuclear-riemannian structure of the space of gauge orbits.

We introduce two maximal non-abelian gauge fixing conditions on the space of gauge orbits M for gauge theories over spaces with dimensions d < 3. The gauge fixings are complete in the sense that describe an open dense set M_0 of the space of gauge orbits M and select one and only one gauge field per gauge orbit in M_0. There are not Gribov copies or ambiguities in these gauges. M_0 is a contractible manifold with trivial topology. The set of gauge orbits which are not described by the gauge conditions M \ M_0 is the boundary of M_0 and encodes all non-trivial topological properties of the space of gauge orbits. The gauge fields configurations of this boundary M \ M_0 can be explicitly identified with non-abelian monopoles and they are shown to play a very relevant role in the non-perturbative behaviour of gauge theories in one, two and three space dimensions. It is conjectured that their role is also crucial for quark confinement in 3+1 dimensional gauge theories., 31 pages, harvmac, 1 figure

We show that regularization of gauge theories by higher covariant derivatives and gauge invariant Pauli-Villars regulators is a consistent method if the Pauli-Villars vector fields are considered in a covariant in the regulating Pauli-Villars fields is pathological and the original Slavnov proposal in covariant Landau gauge is not correct because of the appearance of massless modes in the regulators which do not decouple when the ultraviolet regulator is removed. In such a case the method does not correspond to the regularization of a pure gauge theory but that of a gauge theory in interaction with massless ghost fields. This explains the problems pointed out by Martin and Ruiz in covariant Landau gauge. However, a minor modification of Slavnov method provides a consistent regularization even for such a case. The regularization that we introduce also solves the problem of overlapping divergences in a way similar to geometric regularization and yields the standard values of the $\beta$ and $\gamma$ functions of the renormalization group equations., Comment: 20 pages, latex, 3 Postscript figures (expanded version)