The Stueckelberg Field

In 1938, Stueckelberg introduced a scalar field which makes an Abelian gauge theory massive but preserves gauge invariance. The Stueckelberg mechanism is the introduction of new fields to reveal a symmetry of a gauge--fixed theory. We first review the Stueckelberg mechanism in the massive Abelian gauge theory. We then extend this idea to the standard model, stueckelberging the hypercharge U(1) and thus giving a mass to the physical photon. This introduces an infrared regulator for the photon in the standard electroweak theory, along with a modification of the weak mixing angle accompanied by a plethora of new effects. Notably, neutrinos couple to the photon and charged leptons have also a pseudo-vector coupling. Finally, we review the historical influence of Stueckelberg's 1938 idea, which led to applications in many areas not anticipated by the author, such as strings. We describe the numerous proposals to generalize the Stueckelberg trick to the non-Abelian case with the aim to find alternatives to the standard model. Nevertheless, the Higgs mechanism in spontaneous symmetry breaking remains the only presently known way to give masses to non-Abelian vector fields in a renormalizable and unitary theory.Comment: 58 pages, revtex4 RMP format. Added references, minor improvements to tex

Dynamical Lorentz simmetry breaking from 3+1 Axion-Wess-Zumino model

We study the renormalizable abelian vector-field models in the presence of the Wess-Zumino interaction with the pseudoscalar matter. The renormalizability is achieved by supplementing the standard kinetic term of vector fields with higher derivatives. The appearance of fourth power of momentum in the vector-field propagator leads to the super-renormalizable theory in which the $\beta$-function, the vector-field renormalization constant and the anomalous mass dimension are calculated exactly. It is shown that this model has the infrared stable fixed point and its low-energy limit is non-trivial. The modified effective potential for the pseudoscalar matter leads to the possible occurrence of dynamical breaking of the Lorentz symmetry. This phenomenon is related to the modification of Electrodynamics by means of the Chern-Simons (CS) interaction polarized along a constant CS vector. Its presence makes the vacuum optically active that has been recently estimated from astrophysical data. We examine two possibilities for the CS vector to be time-like or space-like, under the assumption that it originates from v.e.v. of some pseudoscalar matter and show that only the latter one is consistent in the framework of the AWZ model, because a time-like CS vector makes the vacuum unstable under pairs creation of tachyonic photon modes with the finite vacuum decay rate.Comment: 33 pages, no Figures, Plain TeX, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Super-renormalizable or finite completion of the Starobinsky theory

The recent Planck data of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies support the Starobinsky theory in which the quadratic Ricci scalar drives cosmic inflation. We build up a multi-dimensional quantum consisted ultraviolet completion of the model in a phenomenological "bottom-up approach". We present the maximal class of theories compatible with unitarity and (super-)renormalizability or finiteness which reduces to the Starobinsky theory in the low-energy limit. The outcome is a maximal extension of the Krasnikov-Tomboulis-Modesto theory including an extra scalar degree of freedom besides the graviton field. The original theory was afterwards independently discovered by Biswas-Gerwick-Koivisto-Mazumdar starting from first principles. We explicitly show power counting super-renormalizability or finiteness (in odd dimensions) and unitarity (no ghosts) of the theory. Any further extension of the theory is non-unitary confirming the existence of at most one single extra degree of freedom, the scalaron. A mechanism to achieve the Starobinsky theory in string (field) theory is also investigated at the end of the paper.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Gauge theory in deformed N=(1,1) superspace

We review the non-anticommutative Q-deformations of N=(1,1) supersymmetric theories in four-dimensional Euclidean harmonic superspace. These deformations preserve chirality and harmonic Grassmann analyticity. The associated field theories arise as a low-energy limit of string theory in specific backgrounds and generalize the Moyal-deformed supersymmetric field theories. A characteristic feature of the Q-deformed theories is the half-breaking of supersymmetry in the chiral sector of the Euclidean superspace. Our main focus is on the chiral singlet Q-deformation, which is distinguished by preserving the SO(4) Spin(4) ``Lorentz'' symmetry and the SU(2) R-symmetry. We present the superfield and component structures of the deformed N=(1,0) supersymmetric gauge theory as well as of hypermultiplets coupled to a gauge superfield: invariant actions, deformed transformation rules, and so on. We discuss quantum aspects of these models and prove their renormalizability in the abelian case. For the charged hypermultiplet in an abelian gauge superfield background we construct the deformed holomorphic effective action.Comment: 1+60 pages, typos corrected, references adde

Electrons in an annealed environment: A special case of the interacting electron problem

The problem of noninteracting electrons in the presence of annealed magnetic disorder, in addition to nonmagnetic quenched disorder, is considered. It is shown that the proper physical interpretation of this model is one of electrons interacting via a potential that is long-ranged in time, and that its technical analysis by means of renormalization group techniques must also be done in analogy to the interacting problem. As a result, and contrary to previous claims, the model does not simply describe a metal-insulator transition in $d=2+\epsilon$ ($\epsilon\ll 1$) dimensions. Rather, it describes a transition to a ferromagnetic state that, as a function of the disorder, precedes the metal-insulator transition close to $d=2$. In $d=3$, a transition from a paramagnetic metal to a paramagnetic insulator is possible.Comment: 13 pp., LaTeX, 2 eps figs; final version as publishe

Four-Fermion Theory and the Conformal Bootstrap

We employ the conformal bootstrap to re-examine the problem of finding the critical behavior of four-Fermion theory at its strong coupling fixed point. Existence of a solution of the bootstrap equations indicates self-consistency of the assumption that, in space-time dimensions less than four, the renormalization group flow of the coupling constant of a four-Fermion interaction has a nontrivial fixed point which is generally out of the perturbative regime. We exploit the hypothesis of conformal invariance at this fixed point to reduce the set of the Schwinger-Dyson bootstrap equations for four-Fermion theory to three equations which determine the scale dimension of the Fermion field $\psi$, the scale dimension of the composite field $\bar{\psi}\psi$ and the critical value of the Yukawa coupling constant. We solve the equations assuming this critical value to be small. We show that this solution recovers the fixed point for the four-fermion interaction with $N$-component fermions in the limit of large $N$ at (Euclidean) dimensions $d$ between two and four. We perform a detailed analysis of the $1/N$-expansion in $d=3$ and demonstrate full agreement with the conformal bootstrap. We argue that this is a useful starting point for more sophisticated computations of the critical indices.Comment: 31pp, text and figures both in Latex, UBCTP 92-3

Renormalizing a BRST-invariant composite operator of mass dimension 2 in Yang-Mills theory

We discuss the renormalization of a BRST and anti-BRST invariant composite operator of mass dimension 2 in Yang-Mills theory with the general BRST and anti-BRST invariant gauge fixing term of the Lorentz type. The interest of this study stems from a recent claim that the non-vanishing vacuum condensate of the composite operator in question can be an origin of mass gap and quark confinement in any manifestly covariant gauge, as proposed by one of the authors. First, we obtain the renormalization group flow of the Yang-Mills theory. Next, we show the multiplicative renormalizability of the composite operator and that the BRST and anti-BRST invariance of the bare composite operator is preserved under the renormalization. Third, we perform the operator product expansion of the gluon and ghost propagators and obtain the Wilson coefficient corresponding to the vacuum condensate of mass dimension 2. Finally, we discuss the connection of this work with the previous works and argue the physical implications of the obtained results.Comment: 49 pages, 35 eps-files, A number of typographic errors are corrected. A paragraph is added in the beginning of section 5.3. Two equations (7.1) and (7.2) are added. A version to be published in Phys. Rev.