The QCD Trace Anomaly as a Vacuum Effect (The vacuum is a medium is the message!)

We use arguments taken from the electrodynamics of media to deduce the QCD trace anomaly from the expression for the vacuum energy in the presence of an external color magnetic field.Comment: 18 pages, USITP 94-1

Microscopic derivation of Ginzburg-Landau theories for hierarchical quantum Hall states

We propose a Ginzburg-Landau theory for a large and important part of the abelian quantum Hall hierarchy, including the prominently observed Jain sequences. By a generalized "flux attachment" construction we extend the Ginzburg-Landau-Chern-Simons composite boson theory to states obtained by both quasielectron and quasihole condensation, and express the corresponding wave functions as correlators in conformal field theories. This yields a precise identification of the relativistic scalar fields entering these correlators in terms of the original electron field.Comment: Submission to SciPost; added comments and reference

Hall Viscosity of Hierarchical Quantum Hall States

Using methods based on conformal field theory, we construct model wave functions on a torus with arbitrary flat metric for all chiral states in the abelian quantum Hall hierarchy. These functions have no variational parameters, and they transform under the modular group in the same way as the multicomponent generalizations of the Laughlin wave functions. Assuming the absence of Berry phases upon adiabatic variations of the modular parameter $\tau$, we calculate the quantum Hall viscosity and find it to be in agreement with the formula, given by Read, which relates the viscosity to the average orbital spin of the electrons. For the filling factor $\nu=2/5$ Jain state, which is at the second level in the hierarchy, we compare our model wave function with the numerically obtained ground state of the Coulomb interaction Hamiltonian in the lowest Landau level, and find very good agreement in a large region of the complex $\tau$-plane. For the same example, we also numerically compute the Hall viscosity and find good agreement with the analytical result for both the model wave function and the numerically obtained Coulomb wave function. We argue that this supports the notion of a generalized plasma analogy that would ensure that wave functions obtained using the conformal field theory methods do not acquire Berry phases upon adiabatic evolution

A Coherent State Path Integral for Anyons

We derive an $su(1,1)$ coherent state path integral formula for a system of two one-dimensional anyons in a harmonic potential. By a change of variables we transform this integral into a coherent states path integral for a harmonic oscillator with a shifted energy. The shift is the same as the one obtained for anyons by other methods. We justify the procedure by showing that the change of variables corresponds to a $su(1,1)$ version of the Holstein-Primakoff transformation.Comment: Latex 6 pages, USITP-94-1