Physical unitarity in the Lagrangian Sp(2)-symmetric formalism

The structure of state vector space for a general (non-anomalous) gauge theory is studied within the Lagrangian version of the $Sp(2)$-symmetric quantization method. The physical {\it S}-matrix unitarity conditions are formulated. The general results are illustrated on the basis of simple gauge theory models.Comment: 26 pages, LaTE

One-loop effective action for Einstein gravity in special background gauge

The one-loop effective action for Einstein gravity in a special one-parameter background gauge is calculated up to first order in a gauge parameter. It is shown that the effective action does not depend upon the gauge parameter on shell.Comment: 17 pages, Latex, no figure

Production of Neutral Fermion in Linear Magnetic Field through Pauli Interaction

We calculate the production rate of neutral fermions in linear magnetic fields through the Pauli interaction. It is found that the production rate is exponentially decreasing function with respect to the inverse of the magnetic field gradient, which shows the non-perturbative characteristics analogous to the Schwinger process. It turns out that the production rate density depends on both the gradient and the strength of magnetic fields in 3+1 dimension. It is quite different from the result in 2+1 dimension, where the production rate depends only on the gradient of the magnetic fields, not on the strength of the magnetic fields. It is also found that the production of neutral fermions through the Pauli interaction is a magnetic effect whereas the production of charged particles through minimal coupling is an electric effect.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Superfield quantization of general gauge theories

A superfield version on superspace $(x^\mu,\theta^a)$ is proposed for the $Sp(2)$-- covariant Lagrangian quantization of general gauge theories. The BRST- and antiBRST- transformations are realized on superfields as supertranslations in the $\theta^a$-- directions. A new (geometric) interpretation of the Ward identities in the quantum gauge theory is given.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, no figure

Effective Potential for Uniform Magnetic Fields through Pauli Interaction

We have calculated the explicit form of the real and imaginary parts of the effective potential for uniform magnetic fields which interact with spin-1/2 fermions through the Pauli interaction. It is found that the non-vanishing imaginary part develops for a magnetic field stronger than a critical field, whose strength is the ratio of the fermion mass to its magnetic moment. This implies the instability of the uniform magnetic field beyond the critical field strength to produce fermion pairs with the production rate density $w(x)=\frac{m^{4}}{24\pi}(\frac{|\mu B|}{m}-1)^{3}(\frac{|\mu B|}{m}+3)$ in the presence of Pauli interaction.Comment: 9 pages with 1 figur

The effective action and quantum gauge transformations

The local symmetry transformations of the quantum effective action for general gauge theory are found. Additional symmetries arise under consideration of background gauges. Together with "trivial" gauge transformations, vanishing on mass shell, they can be used for construction simple gauge generators. For example, for the Yang-Mills theory the classically invariant effective action is obtained, reproducing DeWitt's result. For rank one theories a natural generalization is proposed.Comment: Revtex, 11 pages; added reference

Particles with anomalous magnetic moment in external e.m. fields: the proper time formulation

In this paper we evaluate the expression for the Green function of a pseudo-classical spinning particle interacting with constant electromagnetic external fields by taking into account the anomalous magnetic and electric moments of the particle. The spin degrees of freedom are described in terms of Grassmann variables and the evolution operator is obtained through the Fock-Schwinger proper time method.Comment: 10 page

Gauge dependence of effective action and renormalization group functions in effective gauge theories

The Caswell-Wilczek analysis on the gauge dependence of the effective action and the renormalization group functions in Yang-Mills theories is generalized to generic, possibly power counting non renormalizable gauge theories. It is shown that the physical coupling constants of the classical theory can be redefined by gauge parameter dependent contributions of higher orders in $\hbar$ in such a way that the effective action depends trivially on the gauge parameters, while suitably defined physical beta functions do not depend on those parameters.Comment: 13 pages Latex file, additional comments in section