The non-compact elliptic genus: mock or modular

We analyze various perspectives on the elliptic genus of non-compact supersymmetric coset conformal field theories with central charge larger than three. We calculate the holomorphic part of the elliptic genus via a free field description of the model, and show that it agrees with algebraic expectations. The holomorphic part of the elliptic genus is directly related to an Appell-Lerch sum and behaves anomalously under modular transformation properties. We analyze the origin of the anomaly by calculating the elliptic genus through a path integral in a coset conformal field theory. The path integral codes both the holomorphic part of the elliptic genus, and a non-holomorphic remainder that finds its origin in the continuous spectrum of the non-compact model. The remainder term can be shown to agree with a function that mathematicians introduced to parameterize the difference between mock theta functions and Jacobi forms. The holomorphic part of the elliptic genus thus has a path integral completion which renders it non-holomorphic and modular.Comment: 13 page

Gravitational Radiation from Travelling Waves on D-Strings

Boundary states that preserve supersymmetry are constructed for fractional D-strings with travelling waves on a ${\bf C}^3/ {{\bf Z}_2\times {\bf Z}_2}$ orbifold. The gravitational radiation emitted between two D-strings with antiparallel travelling waves is calculated.Comment: improvements and correction

Can Induced Theta Vacua be Created in Heavy Ion Collisions?

The development of the early Universe is a remarkable laboratory for the study of most nontrivial properties of particle physics. What is more remarkable is the fact that these phenomena at the QCD scale can be, in principle, experimentally tested in heavy ion collisions. We expect that, in general, an arbitrary theta-state would be created in the heavy ion collisions, similar to the creation of the disoriented chiral condensate with an arbitrary isospin direction. It should be a large domain with a wrong $\theta\neq 0$ orientation. We test this idea numerically in a simple model where we study the evolution of the phases of the chiral condensates in QCD with two quark flavors with non-zero theta-parameter. We see the formation of a non-zero theta-vacuum with the formation time of the order of $10^{-23}$ seconds. This result will have important implications for a possible axion search experiment at RHIC.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Latex, Discussion of experimental signatures adde

Neutron electric dipole moment from lattice QCD

We carry out a feasibility study for the lattice QCD calculation of the neutron electric dipole moment (NEDM) in the presence of the $\theta$ term. We develop the strategy to obtain the nucleon EDM from the CP-odd electromagnetic form factor $F_3$ at small $\theta$, in which NEDM is given by $\lim_{q^2\to 0}\theta F_3(q^2)/(2m_N)$ where $q$ is the momentum transfer and $m_N$ is the nucleon mass. We first derive a formula which relates $F_3$, a matrix element of the electromagnetic current between nucleon states, with vacuum expectation values of nucleons and/or the current. In the expansion of $\theta$, the parity-odd part of the nucleon-current-nucleon three-point function contains contributions not only from the parity-odd form factors but also from the parity-even form factors multiplied by the parity-odd part of the nucleon two-point function, and therefore the latter contribution must be subtracted to extract $F_3$. We then perform an explicit lattice calculation employing the domain-wall quark action with the RG improved gauge action in quenched QCD at $a^{-1}\simeq 2$ GeV on a $16^3\times 32\times 16$ lattice. At the quark mass $m_f a =0.03$, corresponding to $m_\pi/m_\rho \simeq 0.63$, we accumulate 730 configurations, which allow us to extract the parity-odd part in both two- and three-point functions. Employing two different Dirac $\gamma$ matrix projections, we show that a consistent value for $F_3$ cannot be obtained without the subtraction described above. We obtain $F_3(q^2\simeq 0.58 \textrm{GeV}^2)/(2m_N) =$ $-$0.024(5) $e\cdot$fm for the neutron and $F_3(q^2\simeq 0.58 \textrm{GeV}^2)/(2m_N) =$ 0.021(6) $e\cdot$fm for the proton.Comment: LaTeX2e, 43 pages, 42 eps figures, uses revtex4 and graphicx, comments added and typos corrected, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Neutron electric dipole moment with external electric field method in lattice QCD

We discuss a possibility that the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment (NEDM) can be calculated in lattice QCD simulations in the presence of the CP violating $\theta$ term. In this paper we measure the energy difference between spin-up and spin-down states of the neutron in the presence of an uniform and static external electric field. We first test this method in quenched QCD with the RG improved gauge action on a $16^3\times 32$ lattice at $a^{-1}\simeq$ 2 GeV, employing two different lattice fermion formulations, the domain-wall fermion and the clover fermion for quarks, at relatively heavy quark mass $(m_{PS}/m_V \simeq 0.85)$. We obtain non-zero values of NEDM from calculations with both fermion formulations. We next consider some systematic uncertainties of our method for NEDM, using $24^3\times 32$ lattice at the same lattice spacing only with the clover fermion. We finally investigate the quark mass dependence of NEDM and observe a non-vanishing behavior of NEDM toward the chiral limit. We interpret this behavior as a manifestation of the pathology in the quenched approximation.Comment: LaTeX2e, 51 pages, 43 figures, uses revtex4 and graphicx, References and comments added, typos corrected, accepted by PR

On the Zero-Slope Limit of the Compactified Closed Bosonic String

In the framework of the compactified closed bosonic string theory with the extra spatial coordinates being circular with radius $R$, we perform both the zero-slope limit and the $R \rightarrow 0$ limit of the tree scattering amplitude of four massless scalar particles. We explicitly show that this double limit leads to amplitudes involving scalars which interact through the exchange of a scalar, spin 1 and spin 2 particle. In particular, this latter case reproduces the same result obtained in linearized quantum gravity.Comment: 10 pages, LaTex file, DSF-T-43/9

Possibility of spontaneous parity violation in hot QCD

We suggest that for QCD in the limit of a large number of colors, N, the axial U(1) symmetry of massless quarks is effectively restored at the deconfining=chiral phase transition. If the deconfining transition is of second order, then the chiral transition is weakly first order. In this case, metastable states in which parity is spontaneously broken appear at temperatures below the phase transition. The production of these metastable states would have dramatic signatures, including enhanced production of eta and eta' mesons, which can decay through parity violating decay processes such as eta -> pi^0 pi^0, and global parity odd asymmetries for charged pions. Using a nonlinear sigma model, in QCD these metastable states only appear rather near the phase transition.Comment: 4 pages, REVTe

D-branes and SQCD in Non-Critical Superstring Theory

Using exact boundary conformal field theory methods we analyze the D-brane physics of a specific four-dimensional non-critical superstring theory which involves the N=2 SL(2)/U(1) Kazama-Suzuki model at level 1. Via the holographic duality of hep-th/9907178 our results are relevant for D-brane dynamics in the background of NS5-branes and D-brane dynamics near a conifold singularity. We pay special attention to a configuration of D3- and D5-branes that realizes N=1 supersymmetric QCD and discuss the massless spectrum and classical moduli of this setup in detail. We also comment briefly on the implications of this construction for the recently proposed generalization of the AdS/CFT correspondence by Klebanov and Maldacena within the setting of non-critical superstrings.Comment: harvmac, 47 pages, 6 figures; v4 same as v3 due to submission erro

Holonomy from wrapped branes

Compactifications of M-theory on manifolds with reduced holonomy arise as the local eleven-dimensional description of D6-branes wrapped on supersymmetric cycles in manifolds of lower dimension with a different holonomy group. Whenever the isometry group SU(2) is present, eight-dimensional gauged supergravity is a natural arena for such investigations. In this paper we use this approach and review the eleven dimensional description of D6-branes wrapped on coassociative 4-cycles, on deformed 3-cycles inside Calabi-Yau threefolds and on Kahler 4-cycles.Comment: 1+8 pages, Latex. Proceedings of the Leuven workshop, 2002. v2: Corrected typos in equations (4)-(8

Genus Two Partition and Correlation Functions for Fermionic Vertex Operator Superalgebras I

We define the partition and $n$-point correlation functions for a vertex operator superalgebra on a genus two Riemann surface formed by sewing two tori together. For the free fermion vertex operator superalgebra we obtain a closed formula for the genus two continuous orbifold partition function in terms of an infinite dimensional determinant with entries arising from torus Szeg\"o kernels. We prove that the partition function is holomorphic in the sewing parameters on a given suitable domain and describe its modular properties. Using the bosonized formalism, a new genus two Jacobi product identity is described for the Riemann theta series. We compute and discuss the modular properties of the generating function for all $n$-point functions in terms of a genus two Szeg\"o kernel determinant. We also show that the Virasoro vector one point function satisfies a genus two Ward identity.Comment: A number of typos have been corrected, 39 pages. To appear in Commun. Math. Phy