Heat Trace Asymptotics on Noncommutative Spaces

This is a mini-review of the heat kernel expansion for generalized Laplacians on various noncommutative spaces. Applications to the spectral action principle, renormalization of noncommutative theories and anomalies are also considered.Comment: This is a contribution to the Proceedings of the 2007 Midwest Geometry Conference in honor of Thomas P. Branson, published in SIGMA (Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications) at http://www.emis.de/journals/SIGMA

Interface Conformal Anomalies

We consider two $d \geq 2$ conformal field theories (CFTs) glued together along a codimension one conformal interface. The conformal anomaly of such a system contains both bulk and interface contributions. In a curved-space setup, we compute the heat kernel coefficients and interface central charges in free theories. The results are consistent with the known boundary CFT data via the folding trick. In $d=4$, two interface invariants generally allowed as anomalies turn out to have vanishing interface charges. These missing invariants are constructed from components with odd parity with respect to flipping the orientation of the defect. We conjecture that all invariants constructed from components with odd parity may have vanishing coefficient for symmetric interfaces, even in the case of interacting interface CFT.Comment: 14 pp; v2: clarifications added, introduction expande

Heat kernel asymptotics with mixed boundary conditions

We calculate the coefficient $a_5$ of the heat kernel asymptotics for an operator of Laplace type with mixed boundary conditions on a general compact manifold.Comment: 26 pages, LaTe

On gauge-independence in quantum gravity

We prove gauge-independence of one-loop path integral for on-shell quantum gravity obtained in a framework of modified geometric approach. We use projector on pure gauge directions constructed via quadratic form of the action. This enables us to formulate the proof entirely in terms of determinants of non-degenerate elliptic operators without reference to any renormalization procedure. The role of the conformal factor rotation in achieving gauge-independence is discussed. Direct computations on $CP^2$ in a general three-parameter background gauge are presented. We comment on gauge dependence of previous results by Ichinose.Comment: 42 kb, LATEX using elsart.sty, accepted for publication in Nucl. Phys.

Boundary Terms in Supergravity and Supersymmetry

We begin with the simplest possible introduction to supergravity. Then we discuss its spin 3/2 stress tensor; these results are new. Next, we discuss boundary conditions on fields and boundary actions for N=1 supergravity. Finally, we discuss new boundary contributions to the mass and central charge of monopoles in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. All models are in 3+1 dimensions.Comment: 15 pages. Talk given by P. van Nieuwenhuizen at the Einstein-celebration gravitational conference at Puri (India) in December 200