Related papers: Physics on and off the light cone
We discuss the origin of chiral symmetry breaking in the light-cone representation of QCD. In particular, we show how quark helicity symmetry is spontaneously broken in SU(N) gauge theory with massless quarks if that theory has a condensate…
Lorentz symmetry has been tested at low energy with great accuracy, but its extrapolation to very high-energy phenomena is much less well established. We expect a possible breaking of Lorentz symmetry to be a very high energy and very short…
Gravity and general relativity are considered as an Effective Field Theory at low energies and macroscopic distances. The effective action of the conformal anomaly of light or massless quantum fields has significant effects on macroscopic…
We study the supersymmetric quantum mechanical systems that arise from discrete light cone quantization of theories with minimal supersymmetry in various dimensions. These systems, which have previously arisen in the study of black hole…
We study the spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking in a field theoretical model in (2+1)-dimension, inspired by string theory. This model is a gauge theory of an anti-symmetric tensor field and a vector field (photon). The Nambu-Goldstone…
One of the most enduring and unresolved challenges in modern theoretical and observational cosmology is the fine-tuning and coincidence problems associated with the cosmological constant. Rather than attempting to reconcile these issues…
We investigate (1+1)-dimensional $\phi^4$ field theory in the symmetric and broken phases using discrete light-front quantization. We calculate the perturbative solution of the zero-mode constraint equation for both the symmetric and broken…
The special theory of relativity teaches us that, although distinct inertial frames perceive the same dynamical laws, space and time intervals differ in value. We revisit the problem of time contraction using the paradigmatic model of a…
Starting from the QCD Hamiltonian in near-light cone coordinates, we study the dynamics of the gluonic zero modes. Euclidean 2+1 dimensional lattice simulations show that the gap at strong coupling vanishes at intermediate coupling. This…
In earlier published work, it was proposed that light speed was larger in the early universe by 30 orders of magnitude compared to its presently observed value. This change in the speed of light is associated with a spontaneous breaking of…
The apparent Lorentz invariance of the laws of physics does not imply that space-time is indeed minkowskian. We consider a scenario where Lorentz invariance is only an approximate property of equations of matter above a certain distance…
A residual gauge symmetry, exhibited by light-front gauge theories quantized in a finite volume, is analyzed at the quantum level. Unitary operators, which implement the symmetry, transform the trivial Fock vacuum into an infinite set of…
Although Lorentz symmetry has been tested at low energy with extremely good accuracy, its validity at very high energy is much less well established. If Lorentz symmetry violation (LSV) is energy-dependent (e.g. $\propto E^2$), it can be of…
The paper discusses the problem of the Lorentz contraction in accelerated systems, in the context of the special theory of relativity. Equal proper accelerations along different world lines are considered, showing the differences arising…
We examine the cosmological implications of space-time non-commutativity, discovering yet another realization of the varying speed of light model. Our starting point is the well-known fact that non-commutativity leads to deformed dispersion…
The role of the conformal group in electrodynamics in four space-time dimensions is re-examined. As a pedagogic example we use the application of conformal transformations to find the electromagnetic field for a charged particle moving with…
Each approach to the quantum-gravity problem originates from expertise in one or another area of theoretical physics. The particle-physics perspective encourages one to attempt to reproduce in quantum gravity as much as possible of the…
The structure of the commutator algebra for conformal quantum mechanics is considered. Specifically, it is shown that the emergence of a dimensional scale by renormalization implies the existence of an anomaly or quantum-mechanical symmetry…
Matter is coupled to three-dimensional gravity such that the topological phase is allowed and the (anti-) de Sitter or Poincar\'e symmetry remains intact. Spontaneous symmetry breaking to the Lorentz group occurs if a scalar field is…
The problems encountered in trying to quantize the various cosmological models, are brought forward by means of a concrete example. The Automorphism groups are revealed as the key element through which G.C.T.'s can be used for a general…