Testing symmetries in effective models of higher derivative field theories

Higher derivative field theories with interactions raise serious doubts about their validity due to severe energy instabilities. In many cases the implementation of a direct perturbation treatment to excise the dangerous negative-energies from a higher derivative field theory may lead to violations of Lorentz and other symmetries. In this work we study a perturbative formulation for higher derivative field theories that allows the construction of a low-energy effective field theory being a genuine perturbations over the ordinary-derivative theory and having a positive-defined Hamiltonian. We show that some discrete symmetries are recovered in the low-energy effective theory when the perturbative method to reduce the negative-energy degrees of freedom from the higher derivative theory is applied. In particular, we focus on the higher derivative Maxwell-Chern-Simons model which is a Lorentz invariant and parity-odd theory in 2+1 dimensions. The parity violation arises in the effective action of QED$_3$ as a quantum correction from the massive fermionic sector. We obtain the effective field theory which remains Lorentz invariant, but parity invariant to the order considered in the perturbative expansion.Comment: 13 pages, Sec. III, additional references added, P symmetry revised, accepted for publication in PR

Nongauge bright soliton of the nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation and a family of generalized NLS equations

We present an approach to the bright soliton solution of the NLS equation from the standpoint of introducing a constant potential term in the equation. We discuss a `nongauge' bright soliton for which both the envelope and the phase depend only on the traveling variable. We also construct a family of generalized NLS equations with solitonic sech^p solutions in the traveling variable and find an exact equivalence with other nonlinear equations, such as the Korteveg-de Vries and Benjamin-Bona-Mahony equations when p=2Comment: ~4 pages, 3 figures, 16 references, published versio