Identification of indirect new physics effects at e^+e^- colliders: the large extra dimensions case

We discuss indirect manifestations of graviton exchange, predicted by large extra dimensions, in fermion-pair production at a high-energy e^+e^- collider. By means of specifically defined asymmetries among integrated angular distributions, the graviton exchange signal can be cleanly distinguished from the effects of either vector-vector contact interactions or heavy scalar exchanges. The role of initial electron and positron beams polarization is also discussed. The method is applied to a quantitative assessment of the sensitivity to the mass cut-off parameter M_H of the KK graviton tower in the ADD scenario, and of the potential identification reach of this mechanism obtainable at the currently planned Linear Collider.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure

Triumphalism in the Gospels

While the words ‘triumph', ‘triumphal' and ‘triumphant' are words with a long history, the expression ‘triumphalism' is a modern invention. It seems to have started its career when first Bishop de Smedt of Belgium and later other speakers used it in their speeches in the early sessions of the Second Vatican Council. Through the innumerable articles and books about the Council it became widely known and became a current expression in the terminology of writers on religious themes. The speed and extent of its success showed that it pointed to the existence of an acute problem in the life of the churches. This problem was clearly stated in a contribution to the council's debate on the nature of the Church by Bishop Laszlo of Eisenstad

Quantum Gravity as a Dissipative Deterministic System

It is argued that the so-called holographic principle will obstruct attempts to produce physically realistic models for the unification of general relativity with quantum mechanics, unless determinism in the latter is restored. The notion of time in GR is so different from the usual one in elementary particle physics that we believe that certain versions of hidden variable theories can -- and must -- be revived. A completely natural procedure is proposed, in which the dissipation of information plays an essential role. Unlike earlier attempts, it allows us to use strictly continuous and differentiable classical field theories as a starting point (although discrete variables, leading to fermionic degrees of freedom, are also welcome), and we show how an effective Hilbert space of quantum states naturally emerges when one attempts to describe the solutions statistically. Our theory removes some of the mysteries of the holographic principle; apparently non-local features are to be expected when the quantum degrees of freedom of the world are projected onto a lower-dimensional black hole horizon. Various examples and models illustrate the points we wish to make, notably a model showing that massless, non interacting neutrinos are deterministic.Comment: 20 pages plain TeX, 2 figures PostScript. Added some further explanations, and the definitions of `beable' and `changeable'. A minor error correcte

Quantum Mechanics of a Point Particle in 2+1 Dimensional Gravity

We study the phase space structure and the quantization of a pointlike particle in 2+1 dimensional gravity. By adding boundary terms to the first order Einstein Hilbert action, and removing all redundant gauge degrees of freedom, we arrive at a reduced action for a gravitating particle in 2+1 dimensions, which is invariant under Lorentz transformations and a group of generalized translations. The momentum space of the particle turns out to be the group manifold SL(2). Its position coordinates have non-vanishing Poisson brackets, resulting in a non-commutative quantum spacetime. We use the representation theory of SL(2) to investigate its structure. We find a discretization of time, and some semi-discrete structure of space. An uncertainty relation forbids a fully localized particle. The quantum dynamics is described by a discretized Klein Gordon equation.Comment: 58 pages, 3 eps figures, presentation of the classical theory improve

Color Bosonization, Chiral Parametrization of Gluonic Field and QCD Effective Action

We develop a color bosonization approach to treatment of QCD gauge field (''gluons'') at low energies in order to derive an effective color action of QCD taking into account the quark chiral anomaly in the case of SU(2) color.. We have found that there exists such a region in the chiral sector of color space, where a gauge field coincides with of chirally rotated vector field, while an induced axial vector field disappears. In this region, the unit color vector of chiral field plays a defining role, and a gauge field is parametrized in terms of chiral parameters, so that no additional degrees of freedom are introduced by the chiral field. A QCD gauge field decomposition in color bosonization is a sum of a chirally rotated gauge field and an induced axial-vector field expressed in terms of gluonic variables. An induced axial-vector field defines the chiral color anomaly and an effective color action of QCD. This action admits existence of a gauge invariant d=2 condensate of induced axial-vector field and mass.Comment: 13 pages, LaTe

Quantum Topological Invariants, Gravitational Instantons and the Topological Embedding

Certain topological invariants of the moduli space of gravitational instantons are defined and studied. Several amplitudes of two and four dimensional topological gravity are computed. A notion of puncture in four dimensions, that is particularly meaningful in the class of Weyl instantons, is introduced. The topological embedding, a theoretical framework for constructing physical amplitudes that are well-defined order by order in perturbation theory around instantons, is explicitly applied to the computation of the correlation functions of Dirac fermions in a punctured gravitational background, as well as to the most general QED and QCD amplitude. Various alternatives are worked out, discussed and compared. The quantum background affects the propagation by generating a certain effective ``quantum'' metric. The topological embedding could represent a new chapter of quantum field theory.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, no figur

Distinguishing New Physics Scenarios at a Linear Collider with Polarized Beams

Numerous non-standard dynamics are described by contact-like effective interactions that can manifest themselves through deviations of the cross sections from the Standard Model predictions. If one such deviation were observed, one should try to identify to a given confidence level the actual source among the possible non-standard interactions that in principle can explain it. We here estimate the potential identification reach on different New Physics effective interactions, obtainable from the angular distributions of lepton pair production processes at the planned International Linear Collider with polarized beams. The models discussed are the interactions based on gravity in large and in TeV^{-1} extra dimensions and the compositeness-inspired four-fermion contact interactions. The availability of both beams polarized in many cases plays an essential role in enhancing the identification sensitivity.Comment: 21 pages, LaTex, 11 figures. One author was missing from the previous version. The authors list has been completed, no other change

Hamiltonian structure and quantization of 2+1 dimensional gravity coupled to particles

It is shown that the reduced particle dynamics of 2+1 dimensional gravity in the maximally slicing gauge has hamiltonian form. This is proved directly for the two body problem and for the three body problem by using the Garnier equations for isomonodromic transformations. For a number of particles greater than three the existence of the hamiltonian is shown to be a consequence of a conjecture by Polyakov which connects the auxiliary parameters of the fuchsian differential equation which solves the SU(1,1) Riemann-Hilbert problem, to the Liouville action of the conformal factor which describes the space-metric. We give the exact diffeomorphism which transforms the expression of the spinning cone geometry in the Deser, Jackiw, 't Hooft gauge to the maximally slicing gauge. It is explicitly shown that the boundary term in the action, written in hamiltonian form gives the hamiltonian for the reduced particle dynamics. The quantum mechanical translation of the two particle hamiltonian gives rise to the logarithm of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a cone whose angular deficit is given by the total energy of the system irrespective of the masses of the particles thus proving at the quantum level a conjecture by 't Hooft on the two particle dynamics. The quantum mechanical Green's function for the two body problem is given.Comment: 34 pages LaTe