44 research outputs found

    The Pivotal Role of Causality in Local Quantum Physics

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    In this article an attempt is made to present very recent conceptual and computational developments in QFT as new manifestations of old and well establihed physical principles. The vehicle for converting the quantum-algebraic aspects of local quantum physics into more classical geometric structures is the modular theory of Tomita. As the above named laureate to whom I have dedicated has shown together with his collaborator for the first time in sufficient generality, its use in physics goes through Einstein causality. This line of research recently gained momentum when it was realized that it is not only of structural and conceptual innovative power (see section 4), but also promises to be a new computational road into nonperturbative QFT (section 5) which, picturesquely speaking, enters the subject on the extreme opposite (noncommutative) side.Comment: This is a updated version which has been submitted to Journal of Physics A, tcilatex 62 pages. Adress: Institut fuer Theoretische Physik FU-Berlin, Arnimallee 14, 14195 Berlin presently CBPF, Rua Dr. Xavier Sigaud 150, 22290-180 Rio de Janeiro, Brazi

    Cosmological horizons and reconstruction of quantum field theories

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    As a starting point, we state some relevant geometrical properties enjoyed by the cosmological horizon of a certain class of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker backgrounds. Those properties are generalised to a larger class of expanding spacetimes MM admitting a geodesically complete cosmological horizon \scrim common to all co-moving observers. This structure is later exploited in order to recast, in a cosmological background, some recent results for a linear scalar quantum field theory in spacetimes asymptotically flat at null infinity. Under suitable hypotheses on MM, encompassing both the cosmological de Sitter background and a large class of other FRW spacetimes, the algebra of observables for a Klein-Gordon field is mapped into a subalgebra of the algebra of observables \cW(\scrim) constructed on the cosmological horizon. There is exactly one pure quasifree state λ\lambda on \cW(\scrim) which fulfils a suitable energy-positivity condition with respect to a generator related with the cosmological time displacements. Furthermore λ\lambda induces a preferred physically meaningful quantum state λM\lambda_M for the quantum theory in the bulk. If MM admits a timelike Killing generator preserving \scrim, then the associated self-adjoint generator in the GNS representation of λM\lambda_M has positive spectrum (i.e. energy). Moreover λM\lambda_M turns out to be invariant under every symmetry of the bulk metric which preserves the cosmological horizon. In the case of an expanding de Sitter spacetime, λM\lambda_M coincides with the Euclidean (Bunch-Davies) vacuum state, hence being Hadamard in this case. Remarks on the validity of the Hadamard property for λM\lambda_M in more general spacetimes are presented.Comment: 32 pages, 1 figure, to appear on Comm. Math. Phys., dedicated to Professor Klaus Fredenhagen on the occasion of his 60th birthda

    Lorentz-invariant CPT violation

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    A Lorentz-invariant CPT violation, which may be termed as long-distance CPT violation in contrast to the familiar short-distance CPT violation, has been recently proposed. This scheme is based on a non-local interaction vertex and characterized by an infrared divergent form factor. We show that the Lorentz covariant TT^{\star}-product is consistently defined and the energy-momentum conservation is preserved in perturbation theory if the path integral is suitably defined for this non-local theory, although unitarity is generally lost. It is illustrated that T violation is realized in the decay and formation processes. It is also argued that the equality of masses and decay widths of the particle and anti-particle is preserved if the non-local CPT violation is incorporated either directly or as perturbation by starting with the conventional CPT-even local Lagrangian. However, we also explicitly show that the present non-local scheme can induce the splitting of particle and anti-particle mass eigenvalues if one considers a more general class of Lagrangians.Comment: 28 pages; note added in proof; version published in Eur. Phys. J. C (2013) 73: 234

    Bondi-Metzner-Sachs symmetry, holography on null-surfaces and area proportionality of "light-slice" entropy

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    It is shown that certain kinds of behavior, which hitherto were expected to be characteristic for classical gravity and quantum field theory in curved spacetime, as the infinite dimensional Bondi-Metzner-Sachs symmetry, holography on event horizons and an area proportionality of entropy, have in fact an unnoticed presence in Minkowski QFT. This casts new light on the fundamental question whether the volume propotionality of heat bath entropy and the (logarithmically corrected) dimensionless area law obeyed by localization-induced thermal behavior are different geometric parametrizations which share a common primordeal algebraic origin. Strong arguments are presented that these two different thermal manifestations can be directly related, this is in fact the main aim of this paper. It will be demonstrated that QFT beyond the Lagrangian quantization setting receives crucial new impulses from holography onto horizons. The present paper is part of a project aimed at elucidating the enormous physical range of "modular localization". The latter does not only extend from standard Hamitonian heat bath thermal states to thermal aspects of causal- or event- horizons addressed in this paper. It also includes the recent understanding of the crossing property of formfactors whose intriguing similarity with thermal properties was, although sometimes noticed, only sufficiently understood in the modular llocalization setting.Comment: 42 pages, changes, addition of new results and new references, in this form the paper will appear in Foundations of Physic

    2003 AAPP Monograph Series

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    It is significant that the African American Professors Program (AAPP) at the University of South Carolina is producing the third edition of its annual monograph series at this time-the fifth anniversary of AAPP. The program graciously accepts the challenge of putting into place a requirement for the scholars to produce quality research papers worthy of publication. This provides widespread visibility for them and enhances their curriculum vitae concurrently. Scholars who have contributed manuscripts for this monograph are to be commended for adding this additional responsibility to their academic workload. Writing across disciplines adds to the intellectual diversity of these papers. From neophytes, relatively speaking, to an array of very experienced individuals, the chapters have been researched and comprehensively written. Founded in 1997 through the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies in the College of Education, AAPP was designed to address the underrepresentation of African American professors on college and university campuses. Its mission is to expand the pool of these professors in critical academic and research areas. Sponsored by the University of South Carolina, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and the South Carolina General Assembly, the program recruits students with bachelor\u27s, master\u27s, and doctoral degrees for disciplines in which African Americans currently are underrepresented. An important component of the program is the mentoring experience that is provided. Each student is assigned to a mentor/professor who guides the student through a selected academic program and provides various learning experiences. When possible, the mentor serves as chair of the student\u27s doctoral committee. The mentor also provides opportunities for the student to team teach, conduct research, and co-author publications. Students have the advantage of attending committee, faculty, and professional meetings, as well as engaging in a range of activities that characterize professional life in academia. Scholars enrolled in the program also are involved in programmatic and institutional workshops, independent research, and program development. The continuation of this monograph series is seen as responding to a window of opportunity to be sensitive to an academic expectation of graduates as they pursue career placement and, at the same time, one that allows for the dissemination of AAPP products to a broader community. The importance of this monograph series has been voiced by one of our 2002 AAPP graduates, Dr. Shundelle LaTjuan Dogan, a recent Harvard Administrative Fellow at Harvard University and now Program Officer for the Southern Education Foundation, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Dogan wrote: One thing in particular that I want to thank you for is having the African American Professors Program scholars publish articles for the monograph. I have to admit that writing the articles seemed like extra work at the time. However, in my recent interview process, organizations have asked me for samples of my writing. Including an article from a published monograph helped to make my portfolio much more impressive. You were right on target in having us do the monograph series. We hope that you will read this monograph of the African American Professors Program with enthusiasm or enlightenment. John McFadden, Ph.D. The Benjamin Elijah Mays Professor Director, African American Professors Program University of South Carolinahttps://scholarcommons.sc.edu/mcfadden_monographs/1006/thumbnail.jp

    2002 AAPP Monograph Series: African American Professors Program

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    The African American Professors Program (AAPP) at the University of South Carolina is pleased to produce the second edition of its annual monograph series. It is fitting that the program contrives to assume a leadership role in promoting scholarly products that prove to be useful in research endeavors by faculty and students in higher education. Scholars who have contributed manuscripts for this monograph are to be commended for adding this additional responsibility to their academic workload. Writing across disciplines adds to the intellectual diversity of these papers. From neophytes, relatively speaking, to an array of very experienced individuals, the chapters have been researched and comprehensively written. Founded in 1997 through the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies in the College of Education, AAPP was designed to address the underrepresentation of African American professors on college and university campuses. Its mission is to expand the pool of these professors in critical academic and research areas. Sponsored by the University of South Carolina, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the South Carolina General Assembly, the program recruits students with bachelor\u27s, master\u27s, and doctoral degrees for disciplines in which African Americans, currently, are underrepresented. An important component of the program is the mentoring experience that is provided. Each student is assigned to a mentor professor who guides the student through a selected academic program and provides various learning experiences. When possible, the mentor serves as chair of the student\u27s doctoral committee. The mentor, also, provides opportunities for the student to team teach, conduct research, and co-author publications. Students have opportunities to attend committee, faculty, and professional meetings, as well as to engage in a range of activities that characterize professional life in academia. Scholars enrolled in the program also are involved in programmatic and institutional workshops, independent research, and program development. The continuation of this monograph series is seen as responding to an opportunity to be sensitive to an academic expectation of graduates as they pursue career placement and, also, one that allows for the dissemination of AAPP products to a broader community. We hope that you will read this monograph of the African American Professors Program with enthusiasm or enlightenment. John McFadden, Ph.D. The Benjamin Elijah Mays Professor Director, African American Professors Program University of South Carolinahttps://scholarcommons.sc.edu/mcfadden_monographs/1000/thumbnail.jp

    An alternative to the gauge theoretic setting

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    The standard formulation of gauge theories results from the Lagrangian (functional integral) quantization of classical gauge theories. A more intrinsic qunantum theoretical access in the spirit of Wigner's representation theory shows that there is a fundamental clash between the pointlike localization of zero mass (vector, tensor) potentials and the Hilbert space (positivity, unitarity) structure of QT. The quantization approach has no other way than to stay with pointlike localization and sacrifice the Hilbert space whereas the approach build on the intrinsic quantum concept of modular localization keeps the Hilbert space and trades the conflict creating pointlike generation with the tightest consistent localization:: semiinfinite spacelike string localization. Whereas these potentials in the presence of interactions stay quite close to associated pointlike field strength, the interacting matter fields to which they are coupled bear the brunt of the nonlocal aspect in that they are string.generated in a way which cannot be undone by any differentiation. The new stringlike approach to gauge theory also revives the idea of a Schwinger-Higgs screening mechanism as a deeper and less metaphoric description of the Higgs spontaneous symmetry breaking and its accompanying tale about "God's particle" and its mass generation for all other particles.Comment: 26 page

    A critical look at 50 years particle theory from the perspective of the crossing property

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    The crossing property is perhaps the most subtle aspect of the particle-field relation. Although it is not difficult to state its content in terms of certain analytic properties relating different matrixelements of the S-matrix or formfactors, its relation to the localization- and positive energy spectral principles requires a level of insight into the inner workings of QFT which goes beyond anything which can be found in typical textbooks on QFT. This paper presents a recent account based on new ideas derived from "modular localization" including a mathematic appendix on this subject. Its main novel achievement is the proof of the crossing property of formfactors from a two-algebra generalization of the KMS condition. The main content of this article is the presentation of the derailments of particle theory during more than 4 decades: the S-matrix bootstrap, the dual model and its string theoretic extension. Rather than being related to crossing, string theory is the (only known) realization of a dynamic infinite component one-particle wave function space and its associated infinite component field. Here "dynamic" means that, unlike a mere collection of infinitely many irreducible unitary Poincar\'e group representation or free fields, the formalism contains also operators which communicate between the different irreducible Poincar\'e represenations (the levels of the "infinite tower") and set the mass/spin spectrum. Wheras in pre-string times there were unsuccessful attempts to achieve this in analogy to the O(4,2) hydrogen spectrum by the use of higher noncompact groups, the superstring in d=9+1, which uses instead (bosonic/fermionic) oscillators obtained from multicomponent chiral currents is the only known unitary positive energy solution of the dynamical infinite component pointlike localized field project.Comment: 66 pages, addition of new results, addition of references, will appear in this form in Foundations of Physic

    Substantial contribution of iodine to Arctic ozone destruction

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    Unlike bromine, the effect of iodine chemistry on the Arctic surface ozone budget is poorly constrained. We present ship-based measurements of halogen oxides in the high Arctic boundary layer from the sunlit period of March to October 2020 and show that iodine enhances springtime tropospheric ozone depletion. We find that chemical reactions between iodine and ozone are the second highest contributor to ozone loss over the study period, after ozone photolysis-initiated loss and ahead of bromine.Iodine chemistry plays a more important role than bromine chemistry in tropospheric ozone losses in the Arctic, according to ship-based observations of halogen oxides from March to October 2020.Peer reviewe
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