About Symmetries in Physics

The goal of this introduction to symmetries is to present some general ideas, to outline the fundamental concepts and results of the subject and to situate a bit the following lectures of this school. [These notes represent the write-up of a lecture presented at the fifth ``Seminaire Rhodanien de Physique: Sur les Symetries en Physique" held at Dolomieu (France), 17-21 March 1997. Up to the appendix and the graphics, it is to be published in "Symmetries in Physics", F.Gieres, M.Kibler,C.Lucchesi and O.Piguet, eds. (Editions Frontieres, 1998).]Comment: Latex, 42 pages, 4 figure

Twistor Theory and Differential Equations

This is an elementary and self--contained review of twistor theory as a geometric tool for solving non-linear differential equations. Solutions to soliton equations like KdV, Tzitzeica, integrable chiral model, BPS monopole or Sine-Gordon arise from holomorphic vector bundles over T\CP^1. A different framework is provided for the dispersionless analogues of soliton equations, like dispersionless KP or $SU(\infty)$ Toda system in 2+1 dimensions. Their solutions correspond to deformations of (parts of) T\CP^1, and ultimately to Einstein--Weyl curved geometries generalising the flat Minkowski space. A number of exercises is included and the necessary facts about vector bundles over the Riemann sphere are summarised in the Appendix.Comment: 23 Pages, 9 Figure

A Simple Introduction to Grobner Basis Methods in String Phenomenology

In this talk I give an elementary introduction to the key algorithm used in recent applications of computational algebraic geometry to the subject of string phenomenology. I begin with a simple description of the algorithm itself and then give 3 examples of its use in physics. I describe how it can be used to obtain constraints on flux parameters, how it can simplify the equations describing vacua in 4d string models and lastly how it can be used to compute the vacuum space of the electroweak sector of the MSSM.Comment: 13 pages, Prepared for Mathematical Challenges in String Phenomenology, ESI Vienna, Austria, Oct 6-15, 200

Lagrange Anchor and Characteristic Symmetries of Free Massless Fields

A Poincar\'e covariant Lagrange anchor is found for the non-Lagrangian relativistic wave equations of Bargmann and Wigner describing free massless fields of spin $s>1/2$ in four-dimensional Minkowski space. By making use of this Lagrange anchor, we assign a symmetry to each conservation law and perform the path-integral quantization of the theory

Extended 2d generalized dilaton gravity theories

We show that an anomaly-free description of matter in (1+1) dimensions requires a deformation of the 2d relativity principle, which introduces a non-trivial center in the 2d Poincare algebra. Then we work out the reduced phase-space of the anomaly-free 2d relativistic particle, in order to show that it lives in a noncommutative 2d Minkowski space. Moreover, we build a Gaussian wave packet to show that a Planck length is well-defined in two dimensions. In order to provide a gravitational interpretation for this noncommutativity, we propose to extend the usual 2d generalized dilaton gravity models by a specific Maxwell component, which gauges the extra symmetry associated with the center of the 2d Poincare algebra. In addition, we show that this extension is a high energy correction to the unextended dilaton theories that can affect the topology of space-time. Further, we couple a test particle to the general extended dilaton models with the purpose of showing that they predict a noncommutativity in curved space-time, which is locally described by a Moyal star product in the low energy limit. We also conjecture a probable generalization of this result, which provides a strong evidence that the noncommutativity is described by a certain star product which is not of the Moyal type at high energies. Finally, we prove that the extended dilaton theories can be formulated as Poisson-Sigma models based on a nonlinear deformation of the extended Poincare algebra.Comment: 21 pages, IOP LaTeX2e preprint classfile, Improved discussions, Minor corrections, More didactic, More self-contained, New results concerning noncommutativity in curved space-time, Accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity on 02 Jul 200