Gurses' Type (b) Transformations are Neighborhood-Isometries

Following an idea close to one given by C. G. Torre (private communication), we prove that Riemannian spaces (M,g) and (M,h) that are related by a Gurses type (b) transformation [M. Gurses, Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 367 (1993)] or, equivalently, by a Torre-Anderson generalized diffeomorphism [C. G. Torre and I. M. Anderson, Phys. Rev. Lett. xx, xxx (1993)] are neighborhood-isometric, i.e., every point x in M has a corresponding diffeomorphism phi of a neighborhood V of x onto a generally different neighborhood W of x such that phi*(h|W) = g|V.Comment: 10 pages, LATEX, FJE-93-00

Two-Dimensional Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics: Two Fixed Centers of Force

The problem of building supersymmetry in the quantum mechanics of two Coulombian centers of force is analyzed. It is shown that there are essentially two ways of proceeding. The spectral problems of the SUSY (scalar) Hamiltonians are quite similar and become tantamount to solving entangled families of Razavy and Whittaker-Hill equations in the first approach. When the two centers have the same strength, the Whittaker-Hill equations reduce to Mathieu equations. In the second approach, the spectral problems are much more difficult to solve but one can still find the zero-energy ground states.Comment: This is a contribution to the Proc. of the Seventh International Conference ''Symmetry in Nonlinear Mathematical Physics'' (June 24-30, 2007, Kyiv, Ukraine), published in SIGMA (Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications) at http://www.emis.de/journals/SIGMA

Quantum magnetic flux lines, BPS vortex zero modes, and one-loop string tension shifts

Spectral heat kernel/zeta function regularization procedures are employed in this paper to control the divergences arising from vacuum fluctuations of Bogomolnyi-Prasad-Sommerfield vortices in the Abelian Higgs model. Zero modes of vortex fluctuations are the source of difficulties appearing when the standard Gilkey-de Witt expansion is performed. A modified GdW expansion is developed to diminish the impact of the infrared divergences due to the vortex zero modes. With this new technique at our disposal we compute the one-loop vortex mass shift in the planar AHM and the quantum corrections to the string tension of the magnetic flux tubes living in three dimensions. In both cases it is observed that weak repulsive forces surge between these classically non interacting topological defects caused by vacuum quantum fluctuations.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figure

Quantum fluctuations around low-dimensional topological defects

In these Lectures a method is described to analyze the effect of quantum fluctuations on topological defect backgrounds up to the one-loop level. The method is based on the spectral heat kernel/zeta function regularization procedure, and it is first applied to various types of kinks arising in several deformed linear and non-linear sigma models with different numbers of scalar fields. In the second part, the same conceptual framework is constructed for the topological solitons of the planar semilocal Abelian Higgs model, built from a doublet of complex scalar fields and one U(1) gauge field.Comment: 63 pages, 14 figures, expanded version of two lectures given by J.M.G. in 5th International School on Field Theory and Gravitation, Cuiaba, Brazi