Complementarity and Scientific Rationality

Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics has been criticized as incoherent and opportunistic, and based on doubtful philosophical premises. If so Bohr's influence, in the pre-war period of 1927-1939, is the harder to explain, and the acceptance of his approach to quantum mechanics over de Broglie's had no reasonable foundation. But Bohr's interpretation changed little from the time of its first appearance, and stood independent of any philosophical presuppositions. The principle of complementarity is itself best read as a conjecture of unusually wide scope, on the nature and future course of explanations in the sciences (and not only the physical sciences). If it must be judged a failure today, it is not because of any internal inconsistency.Comment: 29 page

The electromagnetic self-force on a charged spherical body slowly undergoing a small, temporary displacement from a position of rest

The self-force of classical electrodynamics on a charged "rigid" body of radius R is evaluated analytically for the body undergoing a slow (i.e., with a speed v<<c), slight (i.e., small compared to R), and temporary displacement from an initial position of rest. The results are relevant to the Bohr-Rosenfeld analysis of the measurability of the electromagnetic field, which has been the subject of a recent controversy.Comment: REVTeX, 15 pages, 3 figures, accepted by J. Phys.

Coulomb corrections to superallowed beta decay in nuclei

Corrections to the superallowed beta decay matrix elements are evaluated in perturbation theory using the notion of the isovector monopole resonance. The calculation avoids the separation into different contributions and thus presents a consistent, systematic and more transparent approach. Explicit expressions for the Coulomb correction as a function of mass number A, are given.Comment: 10 page

The Complete KLT-Map Between Gravity and Gauge Theories

We present the complete map of any pair of super Yang-Mills theories to supergravity theories as dictated by the KLT relations in four dimensions. Symmetries and the full set of associated vanishing identities are derived. A graphical method is introduced which simplifies counting of states, and helps in identifying the relevant set of symmetries.Comment: 41 pages, 16 figures, published version, typos corrected, references adde

A simple and surprisingly accurate approach to the chemical bond obtained from dimensional scaling

We present a new dimensional scaling transformation of the Schrodinger equation for the two electron bond. This yields, for the first time, a good description of the two electron bond via D-scaling. There also emerges, in the large-D limit, an intuitively appealing semiclassical picture, akin to a molecular model proposed by Niels Bohr in 1913. In this limit, the electrons are confined to specific orbits in the scaled space, yet the uncertainty principle is maintained because the scaling leaves invariant the position-momentum commutator. A first-order perturbation correction, proportional to 1/D, substantially improves the agreement with the exact ground state potential energy curve. The present treatment is very simple mathematically, yet provides a strikingly accurate description of the potential energy curves for the lowest singlet, triplet and excited states of H_2. We find the modified D-scaling method also gives good results for other molecules. It can be combined advantageously with Hartree-Fock and other conventional methods.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Letter

Transient effects on electron spin observation

In an earlier publication we addressed the problem of splitting an electron beam in the Stern-Gerlach experiment. In contrast to arguments put forward in the early days of quantum theory, we concluded that there are no issues of principle preventing the observation of electron spin during free flight. In that paper, however, we considered only a sudden switch off of the separating magnetic field. In this work we consider the possible effects of finite switching times at the beginning and the end of the interaction period. We consider a model where the coupling between the electron and the field is time dependent. As a result of the time dependence, the field also acquires an electric component, but this seems to cause no significant change of our conclusions. On the other hand, the smooth change of the interaction enforces the same longitudinal velocity on the electron both at the beginning and end of the interaction period because of conservation laws; this effect was missing in our earlier calculations. As the electrons are supposed to travel as a beam, this feature helps by restoring the beam quality after the interaction

Monodromy and Kawai-Lewellen-Tye Relations for Gravity Amplitudes

We are still learning intriguing new facets of the string theory motivated Kawai-Lewellen-Tye (KLT) relations linking products of amplitudes in Yang-Mills theories and amplitudes in gravity. This is very clearly displayed in computations of N=8 supergravity where the perturbative expansion show a vast number of similarities to that of N=4 super-Yang-Mills. We will here investigate how identities based on monodromy relations for Yang-Mills amplitudes can be very useful for organizing and further streamlining the KLT relations yielding even more compact results for gravity amplitudes.Comment: 6 pages, 12th Marcel Grossman meeting 200

String theory and the KLT-relations between gravity and gauge theory including external matter

We consider the Kawai-Lewellen-Tye (KLT) factorizations of gravity scalar-leg amplitudes into products of scalar-leg Yang-Mills amplitudes. We check and examine the factorizations at O(1) in $\alpha'$ and extend the analysis by considering KLT-mapping in the case of generic effective Lagrangians for Yang-Mills theory and gravity.Comment: 7 pages, ReVTeX4, references updated, changes to text and typos correcte

Explicit Cancellation of Triangles in One-loop Gravity Amplitudes

We analyse one-loop graviton amplitudes in the field theory limit of a genus-one string theory computation. The considered amplitudes can be dimensionally reduced to lower dimensions preserving maximal supersymmetry. The particular case of the one-loop five-graviton amplitude is worked out in detail and explicitly features no triangle contributions. Based on a recursive form of the one-loop amplitude we investigate the contributions that will occur at n-point order in relation to the ``no-triangle'' hypothesis of N=8 supergravity. We argue that the origin of unexpected cancellations observed in gravity scattering amplitudes is linked to general coordinate invariance of the gravitational action and the summation over all orderings of external legs. Such cancellations are instrumental in the extraordinary good ultra-violet behaviour of N=8 supergravity amplitudes and will play a central role in improving the high-energy behaviour of gravity amplitudes at more than one loop.Comment: 25 pages. 2 eps pictures, harvmac format. v2: version to appear in JHEP. Equations (3.9), (3.12) and minor typos correcte

Absence of Triangles in Maximal Supergravity Amplitudes

From general arguments, we show that one-loop n-point amplitudes in colourless theories satisfy a new type of reduction formula. These lead to the existence of cancellations beyond supersymmetry. Using such reduction relations we prove the no-triangle hypothesis in maximal supergravity by showing that in four dimensions the n-point graviton amplitude contain only scalar box integral functions. We also discuss the reduction formulas in the context of gravity amplitudes with less and no supersymmetry.Comment: 23 pages, RevTeX4 format. v2: Expanded version with a new section providing some extra background material and an overview of the general arguments. Minors typos have been corrected. Version to be publishe