An alternative formulation of Hall effect and quantum phases in noncommutative space

A recent method of constructing quantum mechanics in noncommutative coordinates, alternative to implying noncommutativity by means of star product is discussed. Within this approach we study Hall effect as well as quantum phases in noncommutative coordinates. The θ-deformed phases which we obtain are velocity independent.     

Renormalisability of the matter determinants in noncommutative gauge theory in the enveloping-algebra formalism

We consider noncommutative gauge theory defined by means of Seiberg–Witten maps for an arbitrary semisimple gauge group. We compute the one-loop UV divergent matter contributions to the gauge field effective action to all orders in the noncommutative parameters θ. We do this for Dirac fermions and complex scalars carrying arbitrary representations of the gauge group. We use path-integral methods in the framework of dimensional regularisation and consider arbitrary invertible Seiberg–Witten maps that are linear in the matter fields. Surprisingly, it turns out that the UV divergent parts of the matter contributions are proportional to the noncommutative Yang–Mills action where traces are taken over the representation of the matter fields; this result supports the need to include such traces in the classical action of the gauge sector of the noncommutative theory.     

Quantum Hall effect in noncommutative quantum mechanics

We study the quantum Hall (QH) effect for an electron moving in a plane whose coordinates and momenta are noncommuting under the influence of uniform external magnetic and electric fields. After solving the time independent Schrödinger equation both on a noncommutative space (NCS) and a noncommutative phase space (NCPS), we obtain the energy eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the relevant Hamiltonian. We derive the electric current whose expectation value gives the QH effect both on a NCS and a NCPS.     

θ renormalization, electron-electron interactions and super universality in the quantum Hall regime

The renormalization theory of the quantum Hall effect relies primarily on the non-perturbative concept of θ renormalization by instantons. Within the generalized non-linear σ model approach initiated by Finkelstein we obtain the physical observables of the interacting electron gas, formulate the general (topological) principles by which the Hall conductance is robustly quantized and derive—for the first time—explicit expressions for the non-perturbative (instanton) contributions to the renormalization group β and γ functions. Our results are in complete agreement with the recently proposed idea of super universality which says that the fundamental aspects of the quantum Hall effect are all generic features the instanton vacuum concept in asymptotically free field theory.     

Thermodynamics of a Charged Particle in a Noncommutative Plane in a Background Magnetic Field

Landau system in noncommutative space has been considered. To take into account the issue of gauge invariance in noncommutative space, we incorporate the Seiberg-Witten map in our analysis. Generalised Bopp-shift transformation is then used to map the noncommutative system to its commutative equivalent system. In particular we have computed the partition function of the system and from this we obtained the susceptibility of the Landau system and found that the result gets modified by the spatial noncommutative parameter θ. We also investigate the de Hass–van Alphen effect in noncommutative space and observe that the oscillation of the magnetization and the susceptibility gets noncommutative corrections. Interestingly, the susceptibility in the noncommutative scenario is non-zero in the range of the magnetic field greater than the threshold value which is in contrast to its commutative counterpart. The results obtained are valid upto all orders in the noncommutative parameter θ.     

Spin Hall effect and Berry phase of spinning particles

We consider the adiabatic evolution of the Dirac equation in order to compute its Berry curvature in momentum space. It is found that the position operator acquires an anomalous contribution due to the non-Abelian Berry gauge connection making the quantum mechanical algebra noncommutative. A generalization to any known spinning particles is possible by using the Bargmann–Wigner equation of motions. The noncommutativity of the coordinates is responsible for the topological spin transport of spinning particles similarly to the spin Hall effect in spintronic physics or the Magnus effect in optics. As an application we predict new dynamics for nonrelativistic particles in an electric field and for photons in a gravitational field.     

Noncommutative two-dimensional gauge theories

We elaborate on the dynamics of noncommutative two-dimensional gauge field theories. We consider U(N) gauge theories with fermions in either the fundamental or the adjoint representation. Noncommutativity leads to a rather non-trivial dependence on theta (the noncommutativity parameter) and to a rich dynamics. In particular the mass spectrum of the noncommutative U(1) theory with adjoint matter is similar to that of ordinary (commutative) two-dimensional large-NSU(N) gauge theory with adjoint matter. The noncommutative version of the ?t Hooft model receives a non-trivial contribution to the vacuum polarization starting from three-loops order. As a result the mass spectrum of the noncommutative theory is expected to be different from that of the commutative theory.     

Noncommutative SU(N) and gauge invariant baryon operator

We propose a constraint on the noncommutative gauge theory with U(N) gauge group which gives rise to a noncommutative version of the SU(N) gauge group. The baryon operator is also constructed.     

Spin gauge fields: From Berry phase to topological spin transport and Hall effects

The paper examines the emergence of gauge fields during the evolution of a particle with a spin that is described by a matrix Hamiltonian with n different eigenvalues. It is shown that by introducing a spin gauge field a particle with a spin can be described as a spin multiplet of scalar particles situated in a non-Abelian pure gauge (forceless) field U (n). As the result, one can create a theory of particle evolution that is gauge-invariant with regards to the group Uⁿ (1). Due to this, in the adiabatic (Abelian) approximation the spin gauge field is an analogue of n electromagnetic fields U (1) on the extended phase space of the particle. These fields are force ones, and the forces of their action enter the particle motion equations that are derived in the paper in the general form. The motion equations describe the topological spin transport, pumping, and splitting. The Berry phase is represented in this theory analogously to the Dirac phase of a particle in an electromagnetic field. Due to the analogy with the electromagnetic field, the theory becomes natural in the four-dimensional form. Besides the general theory, the article considers a number of important particular examples, both known and new.     

Is electromagnetic gauge invariance spontaneously violated in superconductors?

We aim to give a pedagogical introduction to those elementary aspects of superconductivity which are not treated in the classic textbooks. In particular, we emphasize that global U (1) phase rotation symmetry, and not gauge symmetry, is spontaneously violated, and show that the BCS wave function is, contrary to claims in the literature, fully gauge invariant. We discuss the nature of the order parameter, the physical origin of the many degenerate states, and the relation between formulations of superconductivity with fixed particle numbers vs. well-defined phases. We motivate and to some extend derive the effective field theory at low temperatures, explore symmetries and conservation laws, and justify the classical nature of the theory. Most importantly, we show that the entire phenomenology of superconductivity essentially follows from the single assumption of a charged order parameter field. This phenomenology includes Anderson’s characteristic equations of superfluidity, electric and magnetic screening, the Bernoulli Hall effect, the balance of the Lorentz force, as well as the quantum effects, in which Planck’s constant manifests itself through the compactness of the U (1) phase field. The latter effects include flux quantization, phase slippage, and the Josephson effect.     

Noncommutative Quantum Hall Effect of Bilayer Systems

In this paper we study the bilayer quantum Hall (QH) effect on a noncommutative phase space (NCPS). By using perturbation theory, we calculate the energy spectrum, eigenfunction, Hall current, and Hall conductivity of the bilayer QH system, and express them in terms of noncommutative parameters θ and \bar{θ}, respectively. In our calculation, we assume that these parameters vary from layer to layer.     

Complexified Gravity in Noncommutative Spaces

The presence of a constant background antisymmetric tensor for open strings or D-branes forces the space-time coordinates to be noncommutative. This effect is equivalent to replacing ordinary products in the effective theory by the deformed star product. An immediate consequence of this is that all fields get complexified. The only possible noncommutative Yang–Mills theory is the one with U(N) gauge symmetry. By applying this idea to gravity one discovers that the metric becomes complex. We show in this article that this procedure is completely consistent and one can obtain complexified gravity by gauging the symmetry U(1,D−1) instead of the usual SO(1,D−1). The final theory depends on a Hermitian tensor containing both the symmetric metric and antisymmetric tensor. In contrast to other theories of nonsymmetric gravity the action is both unique and gauge invariant. The results are then generalized to noncommutative spaces. Received: 1 June 2000 / Accepted: 27 November 2000     

Local aspects of superselection rules. II

In a theory where the local observables are determined by local field algebras as the fixed points under a (a priori noncommutative) group of gauge transformations of the first kind, we show that, if the field algebras possess intermediate type I factors, we can construct observables having the meaning of local charge measurements, and local current algebras in the field algebras.     

Progress in lattice gauge theory

Two topics of lattice gauge theory are reviewed. They include string tension and β-function calculations by strong coupling Hamiltonian methods for SU(3) gauge fields in 3 + 1 dimensions, and a 1/N-expansion for discrete gauge and spin systems in all dimensions. The SU(3) calculations give solid evidence for the coexistence of quark confinement and asymptotic freedom in the renormalized continuum limit of the lattice theory. The crossover between weak and strong coupling behavior in the theory is seen to be a weak coupling but non-perturbative effect. Quantitative relationships between perturbative and non-perturbative renormalization schemes are obtained for the O(N) nonlinear sigma models in 1 + 1 dimensions as well as the range theory in 3 + 1 dimensions. Analysis of the strong coupling expansion of the β-function for gauge fields suggests that it has cuts in the complex 1/g²-plane. A toy model of such a cut structure which naturally explains the abruptness of the theory's crossover from weak to strong coupling is presented. The relation of these cuts to other approaches to gauge field dynamics is discussed briefly.The dynamics underlying first order phase transitions in a wide class of lattice gauge theories is exposed by considering a class of models-P(N) gauge theories - which are soluble in the N → ∞ limit and have non-trivial phase diagrams. The first order character of the phase transitions in Potts spin systems for N #62; 4 in 1 + 1 dimensions is explained in simple terms which generalizes to P(N) gauge systems in higher dimensions. The phase diagram of Ising lattice gauge theory coupled to matter fields is obtained in a $\text{1}\text{N}$ expansion. A one-plaquette model (1 time-0 space dimensions) with a first-order phase transitions in the N → ∞ limit is discussed.     

Carnot-Carathéodory Metric and Gauge Fluctuation in Noncommutative Geometry

Gauge fields have a natural metric interpretation in terms of horizontal distance. The latest, also called Carnot-Carathéodory or subriemannian distance, is by definition the length of the shortest horizontal path between points, that is to say the shortest path whose tangent vector is everywhere horizontal with respect to the gauge connection. In noncommutative geometry all the metric information is encoded within the Dirac operator D. In the classical case, i.e. commutative, Connes’s distance formula allows to extract from D the geodesic distance on a riemannian spin manifold. In the case of a gauge theory with a gauge field A, the geometry of the associated U(n)-vector bundle is described by the covariant Dirac operator D+A. What is the distance encoded within this operator? It was expected that the noncommutative geometry distance d defined by a covariant Dirac operator was intimately linked to the Carnot-Carathéodory distance dh defined by A. In this paper we make precise this link, showing that the equality of d and d _H strongly depends on the holonomy of the connection. Quite interestingly we exhibit an elementary example, based on a 2 torus, in which the noncommutative distance has a very simple expression and simultaneously avoids the main drawbacks of the riemannian metric (no discontinuity of the derivative of the distance function at the cut-locus) and of the subriemannian one (memory of the structure of the fiber).     

Gauge covariance of the Aharonov–Bohm phase in noncommutative quantum mechanics

The gauge covariance of the wave function phase factor in noncommutative quantum mechanics (NCQM) is discussed. We show that the naive path integral formulation and an approach where one shifts the coordinates of NCQM in the presence of a background vector potential leads to the gauge non-covariance of the phase factor. Due to this fact, the Aharonov–Bohm phase in NCQM which is evaluated through the path-integral or by shifting the coordinates is neither gauge invariant nor gauge covariant. We show that the gauge covariant Aharonov–Bohm effect should be described by using the noncommutative Wilson lines, what is consistent with the noncommutative Schrödinger equation. This approach can ultimately be used for deriving an analogue of the Dirac quantization condition for the magnetic monopole.     

On the connection between spin glasses and gauge field theories

A simple connection between Ising spin glasses and the Z₂ lattice gauge theory, at negative plaquette temperatures, is presented. It is first shown that annealed models give useful lower bounds on the free energy and ground-state energy of spin glasses. However, they have unphysical low temperature properties (e.g. a negative entropy), which are related to a temperature dependence of the frustration. A restricted annealing scheme is presented which remedies this deficiency through the introduction of a pure gauge coupling counterterm. The possible phase diagrams of the lattice gauge system and their relevance to spin glass transitions are discussed.     

Reformulation of general relativity as a gauge theory

The starting point is a spinor affine space-time. At each point, two-component spinors and a basis in spinor space, called “spin frame,” are introduced. Spinor affine connections are assumed to exist, but their values need not be known. A metric tensor is not introduced. Global and local gauge transformations of spin frames are defined with GL(2) as the gauge group. Gauge potentials B_μ are introduced and corresponding fields F_μν are defined in analogy with the Yang-Mills case. Gravitational field equations are derived from an action principle. Incases of physical interest SL(2, C) is taken as the gauge group, instead of GL(2). In the special case of metric space-times the theory is identical with general relativity in the Newman-Penrose formalism. Linear combinations of B_μ are generalized spin coefficients, and linear combinations of F_μν are generalized Weyl and Ricci tensors and Ricci scalar. The present approach is compared with other formulations of gravitation as a gauge field.     

Chern-Simons soliton and a critical study of the energy momentum tensor in noncommutative field theory

We have shown unambiguously the existence of solitons in the non-commutative (NC) extension of Chern-Simons-Higgs model. The analysis is done at the classical level (since solitons are essentially classical objects) and in the first non-trivial order in θ, the only spatial noncommutativity parameter. At the same time, we have exposed an inadequacy in the conventional definitions of the energy momentum tensor (EMT) in the present context but this pathology appears to be generic to NC field theories. This is reflected in the fact that the BPS soliton equations (obtained from the EMT) are not compatible with the full variational equations of motion, requiring further imposition a restriction on the form of the Higgs field, contrary to the commutative spacetime case. Both in the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of the problem, we concentrate on the canonical and symmetric forms of the energy-momentum tensor. In the Hamiltonian scheme, constraint analysis and the induced Dirac brackets are derived. In fact the EMT behaves properly as the spacetime translation generators and their actions on the fields are discussed in detail. The effects of noncommutativity on the soliton solutions have been analyzed carefully and we have come up with some interesting results. Comparing the relative strengths of the noncommutative effects, we have shown that there is a universal character in the noncommutative correction to the magnetic field—it depends only on θ. On the other hand, in the cases of all other observables of physical interest, such as the potential profile, soliton mass or the electric field, the parameters θ as well as τ (the latter comprising solely of commutative Chern-Simons-Higgs model parameters) appear with similar weightage.