Related papers: Giving up the ghost
The present letter considers the quantization method developed in [1]-[9], which postulates that, in several situations, negative norm or ghost states can be avoided in order to give positive probabilities. These authors also postulate a…
The aim of these notes is to provide a self-contained review of why it is generically a problem when a solution of a theory possesses ghost fields among the perturbation modes. We define what a ghost field is and we show that its presence…
We consider the simplest nontrivial supersymmetric quantum mechanical system involving higher derivatives. We unravel the existence of additional bosonic and fermionic integrals of motion forming a nontrivial algebra. This allows one to…
Ghost fields in quantum field theory have been a long-standing problem. Specifically, theories with higher derivatives involve ghosts that appear in the Hamiltonian in the form of linear momenta term, which is commonly known as the…
A higher derivative term is introduced in the kinetic energy of the Higgs Lagrangian in the minimal Standard Model. A logically consistent and {\it finite} field theory is obtained when some excitations of the Higgs field are quantized with…
Using the Pais-Uhlenbeck Oscillator as a toy model, we outline a consistent alternative to the indefinite-metric quantization scheme that does not violate unitarity. We describe the basic mathematical structure of this method by giving an…
We explore the Jacobi Last Multiplier as a means for deriving the Lagrangian of a fourth-order differential equation. In particular we consider the classical problem of the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator and write down the accompanying…
We discuss the Hamiltonian H = p^2/2 - (ix)^{2n+1} and the mixed Hamiltonian H = (p^2 + x^2)/2 - g(ix)^{2n+1}, which are crypto-Hermitian in a sense that, in spite of apparent complexity of the potential, a quantum spectral problem can be…
The antisymmetrization of the composite particles in cluster model calculations manifests itself in Pauli forbidden states (ghost states), if one restricts oneself on undeformed cluster in the low energy region. The resonating group method…
By adding an imaginary interacting term proportional to ip_1p_2 to the Hamiltonian of a free anisotropic planar oscillator, we construct a new model which is described by the PT-pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonian with the permutation symmetry of…
We give a detailed account of the free field spectrum and the Newtonian limit of the linearized "massive" (Pauli-Fierz), "topologically massive" (Einstein-Hilbert-Chern-Simons) gravity in 2+1 dimensions about a Minkowski spacetime. For a…
We remark that Ostrogradsky ghosts in higher-derivative gravity, with a finite number of derivatives, are fictitious as they result from an unjustified truncation performed in a complete theory containing infinitely many curvature…
We argue that Lee-Wick's complex ghost appearing in any higher derivative theory is stable and its asymptotic field exists. It may be more appropriate to call it ``anti-unstable" in the sense that, the more the ghost `decays' into lighter…
We study the quantization of systems with local particle-ghost symmetries. The systems contain ordinary particles including gauge bosons and their counterparts obeying different statistics. The particle-ghost symmetry is a kind of fermionic…
In this work, we show that, for the $i\phi^{3}$ scalar field theory, their exists a contradiction between the assumption that the field is real and the fact that the quantized as well as the classical fields have to satisfy the Klein-Gordon…
In ${\cal PT}-$symmetric quantum mechanics one of the most characteristic mathematical features of the formalism is the explicit Hamiltonian-dependence of the physical Hilbert space of states ${\cal H}={\cal H}(H)$. Some of the most…
We analyse the emergence of the Unruh effect within the context of a field Lagrangian theory associated to the Pais-Uhlenbeck fourth order oscillator model. To this end, we introduce a transformation that brings the Hamiltonian bounded from…
We introduce new techniques that can preserve unitarity of the system including ghost particles. Negative norms of the particles can be involved in zero-norm states by constraints of the physical space. These are useful to apply the…
Recent work has shown that non-local modifications of the Einstein equations can have interesting cosmological consequences and can provide a dynamical origin for dark energy, consistent with existing data. At first sight these theories are…
Negative kinetic energies correspond to ghost degrees of freedom, which are potentially of relevance for cosmology, quantum gravity, and high energy physics. We present a novel wide class of stable mechanical systems where a positive energy…