Note on Signature Change and Colombeau Theory

Recent work alludes to various `controversies' associated with signature change in general relativity. As we have argued previously, these are in fact disagreements about the (often unstated) assumptions underlying various possible approaches. The choice between approaches remains open.Comment: REVTex, 3 pages; to appear in GR

Octonionic Cayley Spinors and E6

Attempts to extend our previous work using the octonions to describe fundamental particles lead naturally to the consideration of a particular real, noncompact form of the exceptional Lie group E6, and of its subgroups. We are therefore led to a description of E6 in terms of 3x3 octonionic matrices, generalizing previous results in the 2x2 case. Our treatment naturally includes a description of several important subgroups of E6, notably G2, F4, and (the double cover of) SO(9,1), An interpretation of the actions of these groups on the squares of 3-component "Cayley spinors" is suggested.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure, contributed talk at 2nd Mile High Conference (Denver 2009

Octonionic Mobius Transformations

A vexing problem involving nonassociativity is resolved, allowing a generalization of the usual complex Mobius transformations to the octonions. This is accomplished by relating the octonionic Mobius transformations to the Lorentz group in 10 spacetime dimensions. The result will be of particular interest to physicists working with lightlike objects in 10 dimensions.Comment: Plain TeX, 12 pages, 1 PostScript figure included using eps

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS FOR THE SCALAR FIELD IN THE PRESENCE OF SIGNATURE CHANGE

We show that, contrary to recent criticism, our previous work yields a reasonable class of solutions for the massless scalar field in the presence of signature change.Comment: 11 pages, Plain Tex, no figure

Octonions, E6, and Particle Physics

In 1934, Jordan et al. gave a necessary algebraic condition, the Jordan identity, for a sensible theory of quantum mechanics. All but one of the algebras that satisfy this condition can be described by Hermitian matrices over the complexes or quaternions. The remaining, exceptional Jordan algebra can be described by 3x3 Hermitian matrices over the octonions. We first review properties of the octonions and the exceptional Jordan algebra, including our previous work on the octonionic Jordan eigenvalue problem. We then examine a particular real, noncompact form of the Lie group E6, which preserves determinants in the exceptional Jordan algebra. Finally, we describe a possible symmetry-breaking scenario within E6: first choose one of the octonionic directions to be special, then choose one of the 2x2 submatrices inside the 3x3 matrices to be special. Making only these two choices, we are able to describe many properties of leptons in a natural way. We further speculate on the ways in which quarks might be similarly encoded.Comment: 13 pages; 6 figures; TonyFest plenary talk (York 2008