Non-perturbative aspects in supersymmetric gauge theories

We review our present understanding of those non-perturbative features of supersymmetric gauge theories that are believed to determine the properties of their ground states (vacua). A wide variety of theories is discussed in detail: pure Yang-Mills, theories with massive or massless real matter fields, theories with chiral matter, both for SU(N) and for the case of a general compact gauge group (as for instance E₈). Depending on some general features of the theory under consideration, various (perhaps) unexpected phenomena are shown to occur. Among these the breakdown of the (perturbatively established) non-renormalization theorem, the occurrence of runaway vacua in certain limits, the spontaneous dynamical breaking of supersymmetry itself in some chiral theories. Throughout the report we restrict ourselves to the confining picture instanton method, occasionally complementing it with the information coming from chiral and supersymmetric Ward-Takahashi identities. We compare our results with the ones suggested earlier by effective Lagrangian methods and, only briefly, with those obtained by other groups in the Higgs picture.     

Instanton induced green functions in the superfield formalism

We discuss in detail the supersymmetric instanton calculus of NSVZ and extend it to chiral matter fields in the, adjoint representation. The constant Green functions induced by the instanton of supersymmetricSU (2) gauge theories are calculated systematically for the cases with and without scalar vev's bigger than the scale of the gauge theory and for nonvanishing small masses of chiral fields. Oneinstanton contributions to the Green functions containing four fields without large vevs would disturb clustering; but they are argued to vanish; two-instanton effects then lead to a pattern which quantitatively agrees with factorization and the anomaly relation.     

Renormalization group and infrared behaviour in theories with coupled massless fields

The renormalization-group method is applied to investigate the infrared singularities in gauge theories with Abelian or non-Abelian symmetry, involving both massive and massless fermions. In the Abelian gauge model the infrared structures of massive and massless fermion propagators and of a massive fermion form factor are found. In the non-Abelian gauge model (quantum chromodynamics) the infrared behaviour of a massless gluon propagator and a massive quark form factor is considered in the logarithmic approximation.     

Alien calculus and non perturbative effects in Quantum Field Theory

In many domains of physics, methods for dealing with non-perturbative aspects are required. Here, I want to argue that a good approach for this is to work on the Borel transforms of the quantities of interest, the singularities of which give non-perturbative contributions. These singularities in many cases can be largely determined by using the alien calculus developed by Jean Écalle. My main example will be the two point function of a massless theory given as a solution of a renormalization group equation.     

Instantons, quivers and noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas theory

We construct noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants associated with abelian orbifold singularities by analyzing the instanton contributions to a six-dimensional topological gauge theory. The noncommutative deformation of this gauge theory localizes on noncommutative instantons which can be classified in terms of three-dimensional Young diagrams with a colouring of boxes according to the orbifold group. We construct a moduli space for these gauge field configurations which allows us to compute its virtual numbers via the counting of representations of a quiver with relations. The quiver encodes the instanton dynamics of the noncommutative gauge theory, and is associated to the geometry of the singularity via the generalized McKay correspondence. The index of BPS states which compute the noncommutative Donaldson-Thomas invariants is realized via topological quantum mechanics based on the quiver data. We illustrate these constructions with several explicit examples, involving also higher rank Coulomb branch invariants and geometries with compact divisors, and connect our approach with other ones in the literature.     

Bott periodicity and realizations of chiral symmetry in arbitrary dimensions

We compute the chiral symmetries of the Lagrangian for confining “vector-like” gauge theories with massless fermions in d-dimensional Minkowski space and, under a few reasonable assumptions, determine the form of the quadratic fermion condensates which arise through spontaneous breaking of these symmetries. We find that for each type (complex, real, or pseudoreal) of representation of the gauge group carried by the fermions, the chiral symmetries of the Lagrangian, as well as the residual symmetries after dynamical breaking, exactly follow the pattern of Bott periodicity as the dimension changes. The consequences of this for the topological features of the low-energy effective theory are considered.     

Inclusive D production in $\gamma \gamma$ collisions: including the single-resolved contribution with massive quarks

We have calculated the next-to-leading order cross section for the inclusive production of charm quarks as a function of the transverse momentum p_T and the rapidity in two approaches using massive or massless charm quarks. For the single-resolved cross section we have derived the massless limit from the massive theory. We find that this limit differs from the genuine massless version with factorization by finite corrections. By adjusting subtraction terms we establish a massive theory with subtraction which approaches the massless theory very fast with increasing transverse momentum. With these results and including the equivalent results for the direct cross section obtained previously as well as double-resolved contributions, we calculate the inclusive cross section in collisions using realistic evolved non-perturbative fragmentation functions and compare with recent data from the LEP collaborations ALEPH, L3 and OPAL. We find good agreement. Received: 14 February 2003 / Published online: 5 May 2003     

Curve counting,instantons and McKay correspondences

We survey some features of equivariant instanton partition functions of topological gauge theories on four and six dimensional toric Kähler varieties, and their geometric and algebraic counterparts in the enumerative problem of counting holomorphic curves. We discuss the relations of instanton counting to representations of affine Lie algebras in the four-dimensional case, and to Donaldson–Thomas theory for ideal sheaves on Calabi–Yau threefolds. For resolutions of toric singularities, an algebraic structure induced by a quiver determines the instanton moduli space through the McKay correspondence and its generalizations. The correspondence elucidates the realization of gauge theory partition functions as quasi-modular forms, and reformulates the computation of noncommutative Donaldson–Thomas invariants in terms of the enumeration of generalized instantons. New results include a general presentation of the partition functions on ALE spaces as affine characters, a rigorous treatment of equivariant partition functions on Hirzebruch surfaces, and a putative connection between the special McKay correspondence and instanton counting on Hirzebruch–Jung spaces.     

Higgs boson production in two photon processes

We discuss some properties of the (instanton—anti-instanton) solution of the SU(2) gauge theory with a massless Higgs doublet recently found by Lipatov, Bukhvostov and Malkov.     

Gauge theories of weak and strong gravity

A review of some recent papers on gauge theories of weak and strong gravity is presented. For weak gravity, SL(2, C) gauge theory along with tetrad formulation is described which yields massless spin-2 gauge fields (quanta gravitons). Next a unified SL(2n,C) model is discussed along with Higgs fields. Its internal symmetry is SU(n). The free field solutions after symmetry breaking yield massless spin-1 (photons) and spin-2 (gravitons) gauge fields and also massive spin-1 and spin-2 bosons. The massive spin-2 gauge fields are responsible for short range superstrong gravity. Higgs-fermion interaction can lead to baryon and lepton number non-conservation. The relationship of strong gravity with other forces is also briefly considered.     

Spontaneous symmetry breaking in the non-abelian anyon fluid

We study the theory of non-relativistic matter coupled to the non-Abelian U(2) Chem-Simons gauge field in (2 + 1) dimensions. We adopt the mean-field approximation in the current algebra formulation already applied to the abelian anyons. We first show that this method is able to describe both “boson-based” and “fermion-based” anyons and yields consistent results over the whole range of fractional statistics. In the non-abelian theory, we find a superfluid (and superconductive) phase, which is smoothly connected with the abelian superfluid phase originally discovered by Laughlin. The characteristic massless excitation is the Goldstone particle of the specific mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking. An additional massive mode is found by diagonalizing the non-local, non-abelian hamiltonian in the radial gauge.     

No‐go result for supersymmetric gauge theories in the causal approach

We consider the massless supersymmetric vector multiplet in a purely quantum framework and propose a power counting formula. Then we prove that the interaction Lagrangian for a massless supersymmetric non‐Abelian gauge theory (SUSY‐QCD) is uniquely determined by some natural assumptions, as in the case of Yang‐Mills models. The result can be easily generalized to the case when massive multiplets are present, but one finds out that the massive and the massless Bosons must be decoupled, in contradiction with the standard model. Going to the second order of perturbation theory produces an anomaly which cannot be eliminated. We make a thorough analysis of the model working only with the component fields.     

Gauge boson exchange in AdSd+1

We study the amplitude for exchange of massless gauge bosons between pairs of massive scalar fields in anti-de Sitter space. In the AdS/CFT correspondence this amplitude describes the contribution of conserved flavor symmetry currents to 4-point functions of scalar operators in the boundary conformal theory. A concise, covariant, Y2K compatible derivation of the gauge boson propagator in AdS_{d + 1} is given. Techniques are developed to calculate the two bulk integrals over AdS space leading to explicit expressions or convenient, simple integral representations for the amplitude. The amplitude contains leading power and sub-leading logarithmic singularities in the gauge boson channel and leading logarithms in the crossed channel. The new methods of this paper are expected to have other applications in the study of the Maldacena conjecture.     

Neutrino Mass Generation in SO(4) Model

Generation of neutrino mass in SO(4) model is proposed here. Thealgebraic structure of SO(4) is same as to that of SU(2)_L ×SU(2)_R. It is shown that the spontaneous symmetry breaking results three massive as well as three massless gauge bosons. The standard model theory according to which there exist three massive gauge bosons and a massless one is emergedfrom this model. In the framework of SU(2)_L × SU(2)_R a small Dirac neutrino mass is derived. It is also shown that such mass term may vanish with a special choice. The Majorana mass term is not considered here and thus in this model the neutrino mass does not follow seesaw structure.     

Truncating First-Order Dyson–Schwinger Equations in Coulomb Gauge Yang–Mills Theory

The non-perturbative domain of QCD contains confinement, chiral symmetry breaking, and the bound state spectrum. For the calculation of the latter, the Coulomb gauge is particularly well-suited. Access to these non-perturbative properties should be possible by means of the Green’s functions. However, Coulomb gauge is also very involved, and thus hard to tackle. We introduce a novel BRST-type operator r, and show that the left-hand side of Gauss’ law is r-exact. We investigate a possible truncation scheme of the Dyson–Schwinger equations in first-order formalism for the propagators based on an instantaneous approximation. We demonstrate that this is insufficient to obtain solutions with the expected property of a linear-rising Coulomb potential. We also show systematically that a class of possible vertex dressings does not change this result.     

Screening of instantons in the quark gas

The grand partition function of quark matter is developed about an arbitrary classical gauge field configuration in a systematic weak coupling expansion. In the presence of a finite density massless quark gas the instanton induced effective quark interaction is modified by a factor exp[?2N_F(ω?)²], i.e. the baryon number chemical potential μ acts as an intrinsic infrared cutoff on the instanton scale size ?. The equation of state of the quark matter is also briefly discussed.     

The role of instantons in quantum chromodynamics: (III). Quark-gluon plasma

With the increase in density and/or temperature of matter in the quark-gluon plasma phase, suppression of instanton-induced effects takes place. At some critical parameters chiral symmetry is restored. In this first-order transition the massive quasiparticles-valons-are substituted by nearly massless quarks and gluons, while the “instanton liquid” dissociates into “instanton molecules” with zero topological charge.     

Instanton effects in N = 2 supersymmetric quantum mechanics

Supersymmetric quantum mechanics with several bosonic and fermionic dynamic variables is considered. Two different N = 2 supersymmetric models involving instantons are discussed in detail. Instantons fail to break supersymmetry in one of the models considered. The vacuum state is degenerate in this model which generally results in spontaneous breaking of internal left-right symmetry. In another model supersymmetry is destroyed dynamically due to special complex instanton solutions. Possible implications for SUSY field theories are discussed.     

Ward identities in four-dimensional string theory

A four-dimensional heterotic string theory is envisaged in the background of its massless gauge Ward identities are derived. The spontaneous generating functional is constructed in the hamiltonian phase space and gauge Ward identities are derived. The spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry is discussed in this approach.     

Composite massless fermions in strongly coupled lattice gauge theories

We show that a class of strongly coupled lattice gauge theories with fermions in real representations of the gauge group do not have chiral symmetry breaking. The resulting spectrum of massless composite fermions satisfies 't Hooft's constraints if the model is naively extrapolated to the continuum limit. We argue that it is in fact the correct spectrum of the continuum gauge theory.