Related papers: Quantum field theory with ghost pairs
Galileons are higher-derivative theories of a real scalar which nevertheless admit second order equations of motion. They have interesting applications as dark energy models and in early universe cosmology, and have been conjectured to…
We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics in isolated systems, described by quantum field theories (QFTs). After being prepared in a density matrix that is not an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian, such systems are expected to relax locally to a…
Generalized Yang-Mills theories have a covariant derivative that employs both scalar and vector bosons. Here we show how grand unified theories of the electroweak and strong interactions can be constructed with them. In particular the SU(5)…
The quantum theory of a free particle on a portion of two-dimensional Euclidean space bounded by a circle and subject to non-local boundary conditions gives rise to bulk and surface states. Starting from this well known property, a…
In this paper we propose a wider class of symmetries including the Galilean shift symmetry as a subclass. We will show how to construct ghost-free nonlocal actions, consisting of infinite derivative operators, which are invariant under such…
In the recently proposed non-local theory of quantum gravity one can avoid massive tensor ghosts at the tree level by a special choice of the non-local form factor between the two Ricci tensors. We show that at the quantum level this theory…
The purpose of this work is to investigate the consequences of quantum gravity for the singularity problem. We study the higher-derivative terms that invariably appear in any quantum field theoretical model of gravity, handling them both…
We review how the (absence of) Ostrogradsky instability manifests itself in theories with multiple fields. It has recently been appreciated that when multiple fields are present, the existence of higher derivatives may not automatically…
In this paper DeWitt's formalism for field theories is presented; it provides a framework in which the quantization of fields possessing infinite dimensional invariance groups may be carried out in a manifestly covariant (non-Hamiltonian)…
Theories which contain ghost fields are considered to be invalid. It is assumed that for such theories the energy is unbounded from below, and the theory will be unstable, allowing the creation of particle pairs with arbitrarily large…
Contrary to common belief, it is shown that theories whose field equations are higher than second order in derivatives need not be stricken with ghosts. In particular, the prototypical fourth-order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator model…
In this thesis we investigate two different sets of physics questions, aiming at a better understanding of the low-energy behaviour of Yang-Mills theories, and the properties connected to confinement, in a first part. In a second part, we…
The results of our research on noncommutative perturbative quantum field theory and its relation to string theory are exposed with details. 1) We give an introduction to noncommutative quantum field theory and its derivation from open…
We present an example of the quantum system with higher derivatives in the Lagrangian, which is ghost-free: the spectrum of the Hamiltonian is bounded from below and unitarity is preserved.
We present new and explicit formulae for the one-loop integrands of scattering amplitudes in non-supersymmetric gauge theory and gravity, valid for any number of particles. The results exhibit the colour-kinematics duality in gauge theory…
It is shown that ghost fields are indispensable in deriving well-defined antiderivatives in pure space-like axial gauge quantizations of gauge fields. To avoid inessential complications we confine ourselves to noninteracting abelian fields…
The proper definition and evaluation of the configuration space path integral for the motion of a particle in curved space is a notoriously tricky problem. We discuss a consistent definition which makes use of an expansion in Fourier sine…
We study the creation and evolution of cosmological perturbations in renormalizable quadratic gravity with a Weyl term. We adopt a prescription that implies the stability of the vacuum at the price of introducing a massive spin-two ghost…
Recently, some reformulations of the Yang-Mills theory inspired by the Cho-Faddeev-Niemi decomposition have been developed in order to understand confinement from the viewpoint of the dual superconductivity. In this paper we focus on the…
We revisit the structure of higher-derivative spin-2 theories from the perspective of the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP). We show that a minimal GUP deformation of the Fierz-Pauli (FP) action induces a higher-derivative kinetic…