Reality of Complex Affine Toda Solitons

There are infinitely many topological solitons in any given complex affine Toda theories and most of them have complex energy density. When we require the energy density of the solitons to be real, we find that the reality condition is related to a simple ``pairing condition.'' Unfortunately, rather few soliton solutions in these theories survive the reality constraint, especially if one also demands positivity. The resulting implications for the physical applicability of these theories are briefly discussed.Comment: LaTeX, 15 pages, UBTH-049

Causality violation, gravitational shockwaves and UV completion

The effective actions describing the low-energy dynamics of QFTs involving gravity generically exhibit causality violations. These may take the form of superluminal propagation or Shapiro time advances and allow the construction of "time machines", i.e. spacetimes admitting closed non-spacelike curves. Here, we discuss critically whether such causality violations may be used as a criterion to identify unphysical effective actions or whether, and how, causality problems may be resolved by embedding the action in a fundamental, UV complete QFT. We study in detail the case of photon scattering in an Aichelburg-Sexl gravitational shockwave background and calculate the phase shifts in QED for all energies, demonstrating their smooth interpolation from the causality-violating effective action values at low-energy to their manifestly causal high-energy limits. At low energies, these phase shifts may be interpreted as backwards-in-time coordinate jumps as the photon encounters the shock wavefront, and we illustrate how the resulting causality problems emerge and are resolved in a two-shockwave time machine scenario. The implications of our results for ultra-high (Planck) energy scattering, in which graviton exchange is modelled by the shockwave background, are highlighted.Comment: 42 pages, 15 figures, updated reference

The AdS(5)xS(5) Semi-Symmetric Space Sine-Gordon Theory

The generalized symmetric space sine-Gordon theories are a series of 1+1-integrable field theories that are classically equivalent to superstrings on symmetric space spacetimes F/G. They are formulated in terms of a semi-symmetric space as a gauged WZW model with fermions and a potential term to deform it away from the conformal fixed point. We consider in particular the case of PSU(2,2|4)/Sp(2,2)xSp(4) which corresponds to AdS(5)xS(5). We argue that the infinite tower of conserved charges of these theories includes an exotic N=(8,8) supersymmetry that is realized in a mildy non-local way at the Lagrangian level. The supersymmetry is associated to a double central extension of the superalgebra psu(2|2)+psu(2|2) and includes a non-trivial R symmetry algebra corresponding to global gauge transformations, as well as 2-dimensional spacetime translations. We then explicitly construct soliton solutions and show that they carry an internal moduli superspace CP(2|1)xCP(2|1) with both bosonic and Grassmann collective coordinates. We show how to semi-classical quantize the solitons by writing an effective quantum mechanical system on the moduli space which takes the form of a co-adjoint orbit of SU(2|2)xSU(2|2). The spectrum consists of a tower of massive states in the short, or atypical, symmetric representations, just as the giant magnon states of the string world sheet theory, although here the tower is truncated.Comment: 39 pages, references adde

Causality, renormalizability and ultra-high energy gravitational scattering

The amplitude A(s,t) for ultra-high energy scattering can be found in the leading eikonal approximation by considering propagation in an Aichelburg-Sexl gravitational shockwave background. Loop corrections in the QFT describing the scattered particles are encoded for energies below the Planck scale in an effective action which in general exhibits causality violation and Shapiro time advances. In this paper, we use Penrose limit techniques to calculate the full energy dependence of the scattering phase shift Theta_scat(hat_s},, where the single variable hat_s = Gs/m^2 b^(d-2) contains both the CM energy s and impact parameter b, for a range of scalar QFTs in d dimensions with different renormalizability properties. We evaluate the high-energy limit of Theta_scat(hat_s) and show in detail how causality is related to the existence of a well-defined UV completion. Similarities with graviton scattering and the corresponding resolution of causality violation in the effective action by string theory are briefly discussed.Comment: 23 page

A New and Elementary CP^n Dyonic Magnon

We show that the dressing transformation method produces a new type of dyonic CP^n magnon in terms of which all the other known solutions are either composites or arise as special limits. In particular, this includes the embedding of Dorey's dyonic magnon via an RP^3 subspace of CP^n. We also show how to generate Dorey's dyonic magnon directly in the S^n sigma model via the dressing method without resorting to the isomorphism with the SU(2) principle chiral model when n=3. The new dyon is shown to be either a charged dyon or topological kink of the related symmetric-space sine-Gordon theories associated to CP^n and in this sense is a direct generalization of the soliton of the complex sine-Gordon theory.Comment: 21 pages, JHEP3, typos correcte

Solitons in Two--Dimensional Topological Field Theories

We consider a class of $N=2$ supersymmetric non--unitary theories in two--dimensional Minkowski spacetime which admit classical solitonic solutions. We show how these models can be twisted into a topological sector whose energy--momentum tensor is a BRST commutator. There is an infinite number of degrees of freedom associated to the zero modes of the solitons. As explicit realizations of such models we discuss the BRST quantization of a system of free fields, while in the interacting case we study $N=2$ complexified twisted Toda theories.Comment: 14 pages, IFUM 441/F

An integrable deformation of the AdS5×S5superstring

The S-matrix on the world-sheet theory of the string in AdS5 x S5 has previously been shown to admit a deformation where the symmetry algebra is replaced by the associated quantum group. The case where q is real has been identified as a particular deformation of the Green-Schwarz sigma model. An interpretation of the case with q a root of unity has, until now, been lacking. We show that the Green-Schwarz sigma model admits a discrete deformation which can be viewed as a rather simple deformation of the F/F_V gauged WZW model, where F=PSU(2,2|4). The deformation parameter q is then a k-th root of unity where k is the level. The deformed theory has the same equations-of-motion as the Green-Schwarz sigma model but has a different symplectic structure. We show that the resulting theory is integrable and has just the right amount of kappa-symmetries that appear as a remnant of the fermionic part of the original gauge symmetry. This points to the existence of a fully consistent deformed string background.Comment: 23 pages, improved and expanded discussion of metric and B fiel

The Effect of Gravitational Tidal Forces on Renormalized Quantum Fields

The effect of gravitational tidal forces on renormalized quantum fields propagating in curved spacetime is investigated and a generalisation of the optical theorem to curved spacetime is proved. In the case of QED, the interaction of tidal forces with the vacuum polarization cloud of virtual e^+ e^- pairs dressing the renormalized photon has been shown to produce several novel phenomena. In particular, the photon field amplitude can locally increase as well as decrease, corresponding to a negative imaginary part of the refractive index, in apparent violation of unitarity and the optical theorem. Below threshold decays into e^+ e^- pairs may also occur. In this paper, these issues are studied from the point of view of a non-equilibrium initial-value problem, with the field evolution from an initial null surface being calculated for physically distinct initial conditions and for both scalar field theories and QED. It is shown how a generalised version of the optical theorem, valid in curved spacetime, allows a local increase in amplitude while maintaining consistency with unitarity. The picture emerges of the field being dressed and undressed as it propagates through curved spacetime, with the local gravitational tidal forces determining the degree of dressing and hence the amplitude of the renormalized quantum field. These effects are illustrated with many examples, including a description of the undressing of a photon in the vicinity of a black hole singularity.Comment: 76 pages, jheppub.sty, 10 figures, small corrections. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1006.014

Bound States of the q-Deformed AdS5 x S5 Superstring S-matrix

The investigation of the q deformation of the S-matrix for excitations on the string world sheet in AdS5 x S5 is continued. We argue that due to the lack of Lorentz invariance the situation is more subtle than in a relativistic theory in that the nature of bound states depends on their momentum. At low enough momentum |p|<E the bound states transform in the anti-symmetric representation of the super-algebra symmetry and become the solitons of the Pohlmeyer reduced theory in the relativistic limit. At a critical momentum |p|=E they become marginally unstable, and at higher momenta the stable bound states are in the symmetric representation and become the familiar magnons in the string limit as q->1. This subtlety fixes a problem involving the consistency of crossing symmetry with the relativistic limit found in earlier work. With mirror kinematics, obtained after a double Wick rotation, the bound state structure is simpler and there are no marginally unstable bound states.Comment: 25 page

Non-perturbative effects in the BMN limit of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills

One-instanton contributions to the correlation functions of two gauge-invariant single-trace operators in N=4 SU(N) Yang-Mills theory are studied in semi-classical approximation in the BMN limit. The most straightforward examples involve operators with four bosonic impurities. The explicit form for the correlation functions, which determine the anomalous dimensions, follows after integration over the large number of bosonic and fermionic moduli. Our results demonstrate that the instanton contributions scale appropriately in the BMN limit. We find impressive agreement with the D-instanton contributions to mass matrix elements of the dual plane-wave IIB superstring theory, obtained in a previous paper. Not only does the dependence on the scaled coupling constants match, but the dependence on the mode numbers of the states is also in striking agreement.Comment: 52 pages, no figures, latex; V2: minor change