Universal Limits on Massless High-Spin Particles

We present a model-independent argument showing that massless particles interacting with gravity in a Minkowski background space can have at most spin two. This result is proven by extending a famous theorem due to Weinberg and Witten to theories that do not possess a gauge-invariant stress-energy tensor.Comment: 21 pages. To appear in PRD; two additional reference

On a gauge-invariant interaction of spin-\fth resonances

We show that the gauge-invariant coupling suggested by Pascalutsa removes non-pole terms from a spin-\fth propagator only for a specific choice of free parameter. For the general case the problem can be solved by including higher order derivatives of spin-\fth fields or by modifying the original coupling. In the latter case the obtained Lagrangian depends on one free parameter pointing to the freedom in choosing an 'off-shell' content of the theory. However, the physical observables must not be affected by the 'off-shell' contributions and should not depend on the free parameter of the Lagrangian

Symmetry Nonrestoration at High Temperature in Little Higgs Models

A detailed study of the high temperature dynamics of the scalar sector of Little Higgs scenarios, proposed to stabilize the electroweak scale, shows that the electroweak gauge symmetry remains broken even at temperatures much larger than the electroweak scale. Although we give explicit results for a particular modification of the Littlest Higgs model, we expect that the main features are generic. As a spin-off, we introduce a novel way of dealing with scalar fluctuations in nonlinear sigma models, which might be of interest for phenomenological applications.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 4 figure

On the Renormalization of the Complex Scalar Free Field Theory

Polar coordinates are used for the complex scalar free field in D=4 dimensions. The resulting non renormalizable theory is healed by using a recently proposed symmetric subtraction procedure. The existence of the coordinates transformation is proved by construction.Comment: 27 pages, no figures, LaTe

The Off-Shell Nucleon-Nucleon Amplitude: Why it is Unmeasurable in Nucleon-Nucleon Bremsstrahlung

Nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung has long been considered a way of getting information about the off-shell nucleon-nucleon amplitude which would allow one to distinguish among nucleon-nucleon potentials based on their off-shell properties. There have been many calculations and many experiments devoted to this aim. We show here, in contrast to this standard view, that such off-shell amplitudes are not measurable as a matter of principle. This follows formally from the invariance of the S-matrix under transformations of the fields. This result is discussed here and illustrated via two simple models, one applying to spin zero, and one to spin one half, processes. The latter model is very closely related to phenomenological models which have been used to study off-shell effects at electromagnetic vertices.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, uses FBSsuppl.cls - Invited plenary talk at the Asia Pacific Conference on Few Body Problems in Physics, Noda/Kashiwa, Japan, August, 1999 - To be published in Few Body Systems Supp

Wigner quantum systems (Lie superalgebraic approach)

We present three groups of examples of Wigner Quantum Systems related to the Lie superalgebras $osp(1/6n)$, $sl(1/3n)$ and $sl(n/3)$ and discuss shortly their physical features. In the case of $sl(1/3n)$ we indicate that the underlying geometry is noncommutative.Comment: 8 pages, Latex. to be published in Rep. Math. Phy

The equivalence theorem and the Bethe-Salpeter equation

We solve the Bethe-Salpeter equation for two-particle scattering in a field-theoretical model using two lagrangians related by a field transformation. The kernel of the equation consists of the sum of all tree-level diagrams for each lagrangian. The solutions differ even if all four external particles are put on the mass shell, which implies that observables calculated by solving the Bethe-Salpeter equation depend on the representation of the theory. We point out that this violation of the equivalence theorem has a simple explanation and should be expected for any Bethe-Salpeter equation with a tree-level kernel. Implications for dynamical models of hadronic interactions are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, using REVTeX. Fig. 2 corrected, results unchanged, to be published in Phys. Lett.

Renormalizability of Nonrenormalizable Field Theories

We give a simple and elegant proof of the Equivalence Theorem, stating that two field theories related by nonlinear field transformations have the same S matrix. We are thus able to identify a subclass of nonrenormalizable field theories which are actually physically equivalent to renormalizable ones. Our strategy is to show by means of the BRS formalism that the "nonrenormalizable" part of such fake nonrenormalizable theories, is a kind of gauge fixing, being confined in the cohomologically trivial sector of the theory.Comment: 3 pages, revtex, no figure