Instantons and monopoles in Yang-Mills gauge field theories

This is a survey article on instantons and monopoles and is intended for those who have no prior knowledge of Yang-Mills gauge field theories. With minimal amount of physical motivation and mathematical apparatus, the basic field equations and their solutions, wherever known, are presented. Particular emphasis is put on those problems which are as yet unsolved.     

Semiclassical scattering theory with complex trajectories. I. Elastic waves

The WKB approximation to the one-particle Schrödinger equation is used to obtain the wave function at a given point as a sum of semiclassical terms, each of them corresponding to a different classical trajectory ending up at the same point. Besides the usual, real trajectories, also possible complex solutions of the classical equations of motion are considered. The simplicity of the method makes its use easy in practical cases and allows realistic calculations. The general solution of the one-dimensional WKB equations for an arbitrary number of complex turning points is given, and the solution is applied to calculate the position of the Regge poles of the scattering amplitude. The solution of the WKB equations in three dimensions for a central analytical potential is also obtained in a way that can be easily generalized to N-dimensions, provided the problem is separable. A multiple reflection series is derived, leading to a separation of the scattering amplitude into a smooth “background” term (single reflection approximation) that can be treated using classical but complex trajectories and a second resonating term that can be treated using the Sommerfeld-Watson transformation. The physical interpretation of the complex solutions of the classical equations of motion is given: they describe diffractive effects such as Fresnel, Fraunhofer diffraction, or the penetration of the quantal wave into shadow regions of caustics. They arise also in the scattering by a complex potential in an absorptive medium. The comparison with exact quantal calculations shows an astonishingly good agreement, and establishes the complex semiclassical approximation as a quantitative tool even in cases where the potential varies rapidly within a fraction of a wavelength. An approximate property of classical paths is discussed. The general pattern of the trajectories depends only on the product ? = EΘ, and not on energy and angle separately. This property is confirmed by experiments and besides the signature it gives for the semiclassical behavior, it simplifies considerably the search for all trajectories scattering through the same angle. Finally, a general classification of the different types of elastic heavy ion cross sections is given.     

Yang-Mills theory and uniformization

We define a notion of a stable system of Hodge bundles. A stable system of Hodge bundles has a Hermitian-Yang-Mills metric and, if certain Chern classes vanish, this gives a complex variation of Hodge structure. We use these ideas to obtain a criterion for a variety to be uniformized by a bounded symmetric domain.     

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.     

Semiclassical theory of nuclear rotation

The semiclassical theory of large amplitude collective motion developed previously by the author is applied to uniform nuclear rotation. In this way a sophisticated foundation of the self-consistent cranking model is given and its quantization is accomplished. The obtained quantization condition already contains the leading order correction to the self-consistent cranking model and also reveals the relation between the total angular momentum and the total signature. In the low frequency limit it yields the I(I + 1) law of a quantum rotor.     

Semiclassical theory of chaotic conductors

We calculate the Landauer conductance through chaotic ballistic devices in the semiclassical limit, to all orders in the inverse number of scattering channels without and with a magnetic field. Families of pairs of entrance-to-exit trajectories contribute, similarly to the pairs of periodic orbits making up the small-time expansion of the spectral form factor of chaotic dynamics. As a clue to the exact result we find that close self-encounters slightly hinder the escape of trajectories into leads. Our result explains why the energy-averaged conductance of individual chaotic cavities, with disorder or "clean," agrees with predictions of random-matrix theory.     

Semiclassical theory for two-anyon system

The semiclassical quantization conditions for all partial waves are derived for bound states of two interacting anyons in the presence of a uniform background magnetic field. Singular Aharonov-Bohm type interactions between the anyons are dealt with by the modified WKB method of Friedrich and Trost. For s-wave bound state problems in which the choice of the boundary condition at short distance gives rise to an additional ambiguity, a suitable generalization of the latter method is required to develop a consistent WKB approach. We here show how the related self-adjoint extension parameter affects the semiclassical quantization condition for energy levels. For some simple cases admitting exact answers, we verify that our semiclassical formulas in fact provide highly accurate results over a broad quantum number range.     

Renormalization of N = 1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories: (I). The classical theory

We investigate the classical N = 1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories and pay special attention to the search for the most general action fulfilling the Slavnov identity used to define the theory. It turns out that the well-known action of Ferrara, Zumino and Salam, Strathdee represents a special case, our general solution being equivalent to it through a redefinition of the gauge-fixing condition.     

Anti-Self-Dual Instantons with Lagrangian Boundary Conditions I: Elliptic Theory

We study nonlocal Lagrangian boundary conditions for anti-self-dual instantons on 4-manifolds with a space-time splitting of the boundary. We establish the basic regularity and compactness properties (assuming L^p-bounds on the curvature for p>2) as well as the Fredholm theory in a compact model case. The motivation for studying this boundary value problem lies in the construction of an instanton Floer homology for 3-manifolds with boundary. The present paper is part of a program proposed by Salamon for the proof of the Atiyah-Floer conjecture for homology-3-spheres.Acknowledgement I would like to thank Dietmar Salamon for his constant help and encouragement in pursuing this project. Part of this research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.     

Gravity as Yang-Mills gauge theory

We propose a Yang-Mills field theory of gravity based on a unitary phase-gauge-invariance of the lagrangian where the gauge transformations are those of the SU(2) × U(1) symmetry of the 2-spinors. In the classical limit this microscopic theory results in Einstein's metrical theory of gravity, where we restrict ourselves in a first step to its linearized version.     

Yang-Mills gauge theory and gravitation

We point out that Yang's and Einstein's gravitational equations can be obtained from a geometric approach of Yang-Mills gauge theory in a sourceless case, under a decomposition of the Poincaré algebra. Otherwise, Einstein's equations cannot be derived from a Yang-Mills gauge equation when sources are inserted in the rotational sector of that algebra. A gauge Lagrangian structure is also discussed.     

Yang-Mills theory on a cylinder

Yang-Mills theory on a two dimensional cylinder is studied in the hamiltonian formalism, without using gauge conditions. Since the only gauge invariant variable is the Wilson loop (holonomy) this system is equivalent to a finite dimensional system. The eigenstates and eigenvalues of the hamiltonian are found exactly.     

Topological aspects of Yang-Mills theory

The space of mapsS ³ G has components which give the topological quantum number of Yang-Mills theory for the groupG. Each component of the space has further topological invariants. WhenG=SU(2) we show that these invariants (the homology groups) are captured by the space of instantons. Using these invariants we show that potentials must exist for which the massless Dirac equation (in Euclidean 4-space) has arbitrarily many independent solutions (for fixed instanton number).