802 publications from this institution
In the gauge theory approach to the geometric Langlands program, ramification can be described in terms of ``surface operators,'' which are supported on two-dimensional surfaces somewhat as Wilson or 't Hooft operators are supported on curves. We describe the relevant surface operators in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, and the parameters they depend on, and analyze how S-duality acts on these parameters. Then, after compactifying on a Riemann surface, we show that the hypothesis of S-duality for surface operators leads to a natural extension of the geometric Langlands program for the case of tame ramification. The construction involves an action of the affine Weyl group on the cohomology of the moduli space of Higgs bundles with ramification, and an action of the affine braid group on A-branes or B-branes on this space.
The first obstruction to splitting a supermanifold S is one of the three components of its super Atiyah class, the two other components being the ordinary Atiyah classes on the reduced space M of the even and odd tangent bundles of S. We evaluate these classes explicitly for the moduli space of super Riemann surfaces ("super moduli space") and its reduced space, the moduli space of spin curves. These classes are interpreted in terms of certain extensions arising from line bundles on the square of the varying (super) Riemann surface. These results are used to give a new proof of the non-projectedness of ${\mathfrak{M}}_{g,1}$, the moduli space of super Riemann surfaces with one puncture.
The first obstruction to splitting a supermanifold S is one of the three components of its super Atiyah class, the two other components being the ordinary Atiyah classes on the reduced space M of the even and odd tangent bundles of S. We evaluate these classes explicitly for the moduli space of super Riemann surfaces ("super moduli space") and its reduced space, the moduli space of spin curves.These classes are interpreted in terms of certain extensions arising from line bundles on the square of the varying (super) Riemann surface.These results are used to give a new proof of the non-projectedness of M g,1 , the moduli space of super Riemann surfaces with one puncture.
The mystery of the cosmological constant is probably the most pressing obstacle to significantly improving the models of elementary particle physics derived from string theory. The problem arises because in the standard framework of low energy physics, there appears to be no natural explanation for vanishing or extreme smallness of the vacuum energy, while on the other hand it is very difficult to modify this framework in a sensible way. In seeking to resolve this problem, one naturally wonders if the real world can somehow be interpreted in terms of a vacuum state with unbroken supersymmetry.
No abstract is provided for this article.
The geometric Langlands correspondence was described some years ago in terms of $S$-duality of $\N=4$ super Yang-Mills theory. Some additional matters relevant to this story are described here. The main goal is to explain directly why an $A$-brane of a certain simple kind can be an eigenbrane for the action of 't Hooft operators. To set the stage, we review some facts about Higgs bundles and the Hitchin fibration. We consider only the simplest examples, in which many technical questions can be avoided.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Recently, background-independent open-string field theory has been formally defined in the space of all two-dimensional world-sheet theories. In this paper, to make the construction more concrete, I compute the action for an off-shell tachyon field of a certain simple type. From the computation it emerges that, although the string field action does not coincide with the world-sheet (matter) partition function in general, these functions do coincide on shell. This can be demonstrated in general, as long as matter and ghosts are decoupled.
The temperature and field dependence of the magnetic susceptibility of [PhenH2] [MnCl5] have been determined over the range 300 K to 1.43 K. The complex behaves as a simple Curie paramagnet over this temperature interval with no evidence of either significant intermolecular exchange, single ion zero field splitting or spin-orbit effects in the magnetic behavior. These results are considered in terms of the known electronic and molecular structure of the complex.
There are hints of a novel object (Planet 9) with a mass $5-10$ $M_\oplus$ in the outer Solar System, at a distance of order 500 AU. If it is a relatively conventional planet, it can be found in telescopic searches. Alternatively, it has been suggested that this body might be a primordial black hole (PBH). In that case, conventional searches will fail. A possible alternative is to probe the gravitational field of this object using small, laser-launched spacecraft, like the ones envisioned in the Breakthrough Starshot project. With a velocity of order $.001~c$, such spacecraft can reach Planet 9 roughly a decade after launch and can discover it if they can report timing measurements accurate to $10^{-5}$ seconds back to Earth.
Two dimensional quantum Yang-Mills theory is reexamined using a non-abelian version of the Duistermaat-Heckman integration formula to carry out the functional integral. This makes it possible to explain properties of the theory that are inaccessible to standard methods and to obtain general expressions for intersection pairings on moduli spaces of flat connections on a two dimensional surface. The latter expressions agree, for gauge group SU (2), with formulas obtained recently by several methods.
We investigate the statistical mechanics of a gas of fractional statistics particles in 2+1 dimensions. In the case of statistics very close to Fermi statistics (statistical parameter θ=π(1−1/n), for large n), the effect of the statistics is a weak attraction. Building upon earlier RPA calculation of Fetter, Hanna, and Laughlin for the case n=2, we argue that for large n perturbation theory is reliable and exhibits superfluidity (or superconductivity after coupling to electromagnetism). We attempt to describe the order parameter for this superconducting phase in terms of “spontaneous breaking of commutativity of translations” as opposed to the usual pairing order parameters. The vortices of the superconducting anyon gas are charged, and superconducting order parameters of the usual type vanish. We investigate the characteristic P and T violating phenomenology.
U(1) gauge theory on ${\bf R}^4$ is known to possess an electric-magnetic duality symmetry that inverts the coupling constant and extends to an action of $SL(2,{\bf Z})$. In this paper, the duality is studied on a general four-manifold and it is shown that the partition function is not a modular-invariant function but transforms as a modular form. This result plays an essential role in determining a new low-energy interaction that arises when N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory is formulated on a four-manifold; the determination of this interaction gives a new test of the solution of the model and would enter in computations of the Donaldson invariants of four-manifolds with $b_2^+\leq 1$. Certain other aspects of abelian duality, relevant to matters such as the dependence of Donaldson invariants on the second Stieffel-Whitney class, are also analyzed.
We show that in an asymptotically free gauge theory, the contribution of heavy quarks to deep inelastic structure functions can be computed in terms of the contributions of light quarks. In the standard model with four quark multiplets and an SU(3) gauge group, we estimate that for 10 GeV2 < Q 2 < 40 GeV2 the charmed quark contribution to structure functions will be several percent for x < 0.2 and tenths of a percent for x < 0.2. Our main theoretical tool is an expansion, analogous to the usual operator product expansion, of an operator constructed from heavy quark fields as a sum of light quark and gluon operators with c-number coefficients. This expansion is valied order by order in perturbation theory.
A brane configuration is described that is relevant to understanding the dynamics of N = 1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. Confinement and spontaneous breaking of a discrete chiral symmetry can be understood as consequences of the topology of the brane. Because of the symmetry breaking, there can be domain walls separating different vacua; the QCD string can end on such a domain wall. The model in which these properties can be understood semiclassically does not coincide with supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory but is evidently in the same universality class.
We describe a mechanism for using discrete symmetries to solve the doublet-triplet splitting problem of four-dimensional supersymmetric GUT's. We present two versions of the mechanism, one via ``deconstruction,'' and one in terms of M-theory compactification to four dimensions on a manifold of G_2 holonomy.
No abstract is provided for this article.
