No Arabic abstract
We give a superfield formulation of the path integral on an arbitrary curved phase space, with or without first class constraints. Canonical tranformations and BRST transformations enter in a unified manner. The superpartners of the original phase space variables precisely conspire to produce the correct path integral measure, as Pfaffian ghosts. When extended to the case of second-class constraints, the correct path integral measure is again reproduced after integrating over the superpartners. These results suggest that the superfield formulation is of first-principle nature.
We propose how to incorporate the Leites-Shchepochkina-Konstein-Tyutin deformed antibracket into the quantum field-antifield formalism.
Using a regularised construction of the phase space path integral due to Ingrid Daubechies and John Klauder which involves a time scale ultimately taken to vanish, and motivated by the general programme towards a noncommutative space(time) geometry, physical consequences of assuming this time parameter to provide rather a new fundamental time scale are explored in the context of the one dimensional harmonic oscillator. Some tantalising results are achieved, which raise intriguing prospects when extrapolated to the quantum field theory and gravitational contexts.
The canonical operator quantisation formulation corresponding to the Klauder-Daubechies construction of the phase space path integral is considered. This formulation is explicitly applied and solved in the case of the harmonic oscillator, thereby illustrating in a manner complementary to Klauder and Daubechies original work some of the promising features offered by their construction of a quantum dynamics. The Klauder-Daubechies functional integral involves a regularisation parameter eventually taken to vanish, which defines a new physical time scale. When extrapolated to the field theory context, besides providing a new regularisation of short distance divergences, keeping a finite value for that time scale offers some tantalising prospects when it comes to strong gravitational quantum systems.
In quantum field theory the path integral is usually formulated in the wave picture, i.e., as a sum over field evolutions. This path integral is difficult to define rigorously because of analytic problems whose resolution may ultimately require knowledge of non-perturbative or even Planck scale physics. Alternatively, QFT can be formulated directly in the particle picture, namely as a sum over all multi-particle paths, i.e., over Feynman graphs. This path integral is well-defined, as a map between rings of formal power series. This suggests a program for determining which structures of QFT are provable for this path integral and thus are combinatorial in nature, and which structures are actually sensitive to analytic issues. For a start, we show that the fact that the Legendre transform of the sum of connected graphs yields the effective action is indeed combinatorial in nature and is thus independent of analytic assumptions. Our proof also leads to new methods for the efficient decomposition of Feynman graphs into $n$-particle irreducible (nPI) subgraphs.
Action of 4 dimensional N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory is written by employing the superfields in N=4 superspace which were used to prove the equivalence of its constraint equations and equations of motion. Integral forms of the extended superspace are engaged to collect all of the superfields in one master superfield. The proposed N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills action in extended superspace is shown to acquire a simple form in terms of the master superfield.