The Unbearable Beingness of Light, Dressing and Undressing Photons in Black Hole Spacetimes

Gravitational tidal forces acting on the virtual e+ e- cloud surrounding a photon endow spacetime with a non-trivial refractive index. This has remarkable properties unique to gravitational theories including superluminal low-frequency propagation, in apparent violation of causality, and amplification of the renormalized photon field, in apparent violation of unitarity. Using the geometry of null congruences and the Penrose limit, we illustrate these phenomena and their resolution by tracing the history of a photon as it falls into the near-singularity region of a black hole.Comment: 8 pages, Essay awarded third prize in the Gravity Research Foundation essay competition 201

Quantizing SL(N) Solitons and the Hecke Alegbra

The problem of quantizing a class of two-dimensional integrable quantum field theories is considered. The classical equations of the theory are the complex $sl(n)$ affine Toda equations which admit soliton solutions with real masses. The classical scattering theory of the solitons is developed using Hirota's solution techniques. A form for the soliton $S$-matrix is proposed based on the constraints of $S$-matrix theory, integrability and the requirement that the semi-classical limit is consistent with the semi-classical WKB quantization of the classical scattering theory. The proposed $S$-matrix is an intertwiner of the quantum group associated to $sl(n)$, where the deformation parameter is a function of the coupling constant. It is further shown that the $S$-matrix describes a non-unitary theory, which reflects the fact that the classical Hamiltonian is complex. The spectrum of the theory is found to consist of the basic solitons, scalar states (or breathers) and excited (or `breathing') solitons. It is also noted that the construction of the $S$-matrix is valid for any representation of the Hecke algebra, allowing the definition of restricted $S$-matrices, in which case the theory is unitary.Comment: 35 page

The exact mass-gaps of the principal chiral models

An exact expression for the mass-gap, the ratio of the physical particle mass to the $\Lambda$-parameter, is found for the principal chiral sigma models associated to all the classical Lie algebras. The calculation is based on a comparison of the free-energy in the presence of a source coupling to a conserved charge of the theory computed in two ways: via the thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz from the exact scattering matrix and directly in perturbation theory. The calculation provides a non-trivial test of the form of the exact scattering matrix.Comment: 11 pages, (macro included), CERN-TH.7164/94, SWAT/93-94/2

On the Coulomb Branch of a Marginal Deformation of N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills

We determine the exact vacuum structure of a marginal deformation of N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills with gauge group U(N). The Coulomb branch of the theory consists of several sub-branches which are governed by complex curves of the form Sigma_{n_{1}} U Sigma_{n_{2}} U Sigma_{n_{3}} of genus N=n_{1}+n_{2}+n_{3}. Each sub-branch intersects with a family of Higgs and Confining branches permuted by SL(2,Z) transformations. We determine the curve by solving a related matrix model in the planar limit according to the prescription of Dijkgraaf and Vafa, and also by explicit instanton calculations using a form of localization on the instanton moduli space. We find that Sigma_{n} coincides with the spectral curve of the n-body Ruijsenaars-Schneider system. Our results imply that the theory on each sub-branch is holomorphically equivalent to certain five-dimensional gauge theory with eight supercharges. This equivalence also implies the existence of novel confining branches in five dimensions.Comment: LaTeX file. 48 page

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

Five-Dimensional Gauge Theories and Quantum Mechanical Matrix Models

We show how the Dijkgraaf-Vafa matrix model proposal can be extended to describe five-dimensional gauge theories compactified on a circle to four dimensions. This involves solving a certain quantum mechanical matrix model. We do this for the lift of the N=1* theory to five dimensions. We show that the resulting expression for the superpotential in the confining vacuum is identical with the elliptic superpotential approach based on Nekrasov's five-dimensional generalization of Seiberg-Witten theory involving the relativistic elliptic Calogero-Moser, or Ruijsenaars-Schneider, integrable system.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, JHEP3.cls, important references adde

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