Related papers: Instanton Expansions and Phase Transitions
A general scheme for axion electrodynamics is given, in which a surrounding medium of constant permittivity and permeability is assumed. Then, as an application we give simple numerical estimates for the electromagnetic current density…
We propose a field theory for describing the tachyon on a brane-antibrane system near the minimum of the potential. This field theory realizes two known properties of the tachyon effective action: 1) absence of plane-wave solutions around…
A large body of evidence from lattice calculations indicates that instantons play a major role in the physics of light hadrons. This evidence is summarized, and recent results concerning the instanton content of the SU(3) vacuum, instanton…
I review the canonical axion potential, with an emphasis on the field theory underlying radial and angular modes of complex scalar fields. I present the explicit calculation of the instanton-induced breaking of the Goldstone field direction…
We study instanton solutions and superpotentials for the large number of vacua of the plane-wave matrix model and a 2+1 dimensional Super Yang-Mills theory on $R\times S^2$ with sixteen supercharges. We get the superpotential in the weak…
Our goal is to discover possible new 4-dimensional euclidean solutions (instantons) in fundamental SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs theory, with a constraint added to prevent collapse of the scale. We show that, most likely, there exists one…
If there are a plethora of axions in nature, they may have a complicated potential and create an axion landscape. We study a possibility that one of the axions is so light that it is cosmologically stable, explaining the observed dark…
In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory perturbation theory generically requires the inclusion of extra contributions non-perturbative in the coupling, such as instantons, to reproduce exact results. We show how full non-perturbative…
We describe a simple toy model for quintessential inflation where a complex scalar field described by a lagrangian with a Peccei-Quinn U(1) symmetry spontaneously broken at a high energy scale and explicitly broken by instanton effects at a…
We propose a new theory of dark matter based on axion physics and cosmological phase transitions. We show that theories in which a gauge coupling increases through a first-order phase transition naturally result in `axion relic pockets':…
Contemporary attempts to explain the existence of ultra-high energy cosmic rays using plasma-based wakefield acceleration deliberately avoid non-Standard Model particle physics. However, such proposals exploit some of the most extreme…
Two different scenarios (light-front and equal-time) are possible for Yang-Mills theories in two dimensions. The exact $\bar q q$-potential can be derived in perturbation theory starting from the light-front vacuum, but requires essential…
I review the standard instanton framework for determining the $\theta$-dependence of instanton-dominated correlation functions in QCD. I then contrast these well-established semiclassical results with the recent assertion of [1,2], that…
An introduction to the instanton formalism in supersymmetric gauge theories is given. We explain how the instanton calculations, in conjunction with analyticity in chiral parameters and other general properties following from supersymmetry,…
We review the theory and phenomenology of instantons in QCD. After a general overview, we provide a pedagogical introduction to semi-classical methods in quantum mechanics and field theory. The main part of the review summarizes our…
Recent progress in the theory of the electroweak phase transition is discussed. For the Higgs boson mass smaller than the masses of W and Z bosons, the phase transition is of the first order. However, its strength is approximately 2/3 times…
We consider the cosmological model of a self-interacting $\phi^4 - \phi^2$ quantum scalar field and extend our previous results, [3], on resonant tunneling and consequent particle production, to the case of finite temperature. Using the…
We introduce and study a model designed to simultaneously shed light on the mysteries connected with Baryogenesis, Dark Matter and Dark Energy. The model describes a self-interacting complex axion field whose imaginary part, a pseudo-scalar…
Particle production induced by a time-dependent background is well understood as the projection of the time-evolved initial state onto a set of final states. While the asymptotic initial and final states are well defined in the usual way,…
Understanding structural glasses using the Random First Order Transition theory requires a description in both real space and in time, taking into account sample history. A variety of nonlinear objects enter this description, in field…