In a dense cloud of massive fermions interacting by exchange of a light scalar field, the effective mass of the fermion can become negligibly small. As the cloud expands, the effective mass and the total energy density eventually increase with decreasing density. In this regime, the pressure-density relation can approximate that required for dark energy. We apply this phenomenon to the expansion of the Universe with a very light scalar field and infer relations between the parameters available and cosmological observations. Majorana neutrinos at a mass that may have been recently determined, and fermions such as the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle (LSP) may both be consistent with current observations of dark energy.
We present a new variant of the spinor techniques for calculating the amplitudes of processes involving massive fermions with arbitrary polarization. It is relatively simple and leads to basic spinor products. Our procedure is not more complex than CALCUL spinor techniques for massless fermions. We obtain spinor Chisholm identities for massive fermions. As an illustration, expressions are given for the amplitudes of electron-positron annihilation into fermions-pairs for several polarizations.
In the work we have considered the reduction techniques matrix element of the reaction interaction of elementary particles for massive fermions to spinor products . The our procedure is not more complex than CALCUL spinor techniques for massless fermions. It is relatively simple and leads to basic spinor products with any polarizationod fermions. Also obtained spinor Chisholm identities for massive fermions.
We derive a systematic procedure of computing the vacuum functional and fermion condensate of the massive Schwinger model via a perturbative expansion in the fermion mass. We compute numerical results for the first nontrivial order.
We present an extension of the antenna subtraction formalism at NLO to include massive final state fermions. The basic ingredients to the subtraction terms, the NLO massive final-final antenna functions are derived and integrated over the corresponding factorised phase space. Those antenna functions account for all soft, collinear and quasi-collinear limits of the QCD matrix elements involving massive fermions in the final state.
Tensor reduction is important for multi-loop amplitude calculation. And the projection method is one of the most popular approaches for tensor reduction. However, projection method could be problematic for amplitude with massive fermions due to the inconsistency between helicity and chirality. We propose an approach to extend the projection method to reduce the loop amplitude containing fermion chain with two massive spinors. The extension is achieved by decomposing one of the massive spinors into two specific massless spinors, "null spinor" and "reference spinor". Then the extended projection…
Recently the two-loop next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) virtual corrections to arbitrary processes with massless external fermions have been calculated. Within the spontaneously broken electroweak theory the one- and two-loop mass singularities have been derived to NLL accuracy and expressed as universal correction factors depending only on the quantum numbers of the external particles. This talk summarizes the results for massless fermionic processes and presents new aspects arising in the extension of the corresponding loop calculations to massive external fermions. As a preliminary result, …
We compute the three-loop QCD corrections to the massive quark form factors with external vector, axial-vector, scalar and pseudo-scalar currents. All corrections with closed loops of massless fermions are included. The non-fermionic part is computed in the large-$N_c$ limit, where only planar Feynman diagrams contribute.
We studied the $m=0$ limit of different components of Wigner functions for massive fermions. Comparing with the chiral kinetic theory, we separated the vanishing part and non-vanishing part for vector and axial vector components, up to the first order of $\hbar$. Then we discussed the possible physical meaning of the vanishing and non-vanishing parts, and their different behavior at thermal equilibrium.
The dynamical evolution of spin of a massive probe fermion in a massless hot QED plasma at local equilibrium is investigated through the quantum kinetic theory. We consider the massive probe fermion undergoing 2-by-2 Coulomb scattering with the massless fermions in the medium. The axial kinetic equation is derived including the collision terms to the first order of gradients and leading logarithmic order of the coupling. The collision terms are vanishing at global equilibrium, around which the relaxation time can be extracted as an operator. We further decompose the axial kinetic equation into…
The two-loop massive operator matrix elements for the fermionic local twist--2 operators with external massive fermion lines in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) are calculated up to the constant terms in the dimensional parameter $ε= D - 4$. We investigate the hypothesis of Ref. \cite{BBN} that the 2--loop QED initial state corrections to $e^+e^-$ annihilation into a virtual neutral gauge boson, except power corrections of $O((m_f^2/s)^k), k \geq 1$, can be represented in terms of these matrix elements and the massless 2-loop Wilson coefficients of the Drell-Yan process.
We examine QED$_{1+1}$ (the massive Schwinger model) to extend existing perturbation results in $m_f/m_b$, and compare our results with lattice and DLCQ calculations. (Based on a talk presented by J.P. Vary at ``Theory of Hadrons and Light-Front QCD'', Polona Zgorzelisko, Poland, August 1994.)
We study chiral symmetry breaking in $\rm QED_3$ with $N_f$ flavors of four-component fermions. A closed system of Schwinger-Dyson equations for fermion and photon propagators and the full fermion-photon vertex is proposed, which is consistent with the Ward-Takahashi identity. A simplified version of that set of equations is reduced (in nonlocal gauge) to the equation for a dynamical fermion mass function, where the one-loop vacuum polarization with dynamically massive fermions has been taken into account. The linearized equation for the fermion mass function is analyzed in real space. The ana…
The motion equation with nonzero mass, invariant for weak isospin transformation, can be obtained from the Dirac equation by the adding of the Clifford pentad fifth element. The motion equation of the SU(2) Yang-Mills field components is similar to the Klein-Gordon equation with the nonzero mass.
We describe an application of generalised unitarity to the computation of one-loop amplitudes with massive external fermions. We present analytic results for the cut-constructible parts of the leading colour contributions to the all-plus helicity configuration of the $t\bar{t}gg$ amplitude. Using a special choice for the helicity basis of the massive fermions we are able to obtain extremely compact analytic expressions. In particular we describe how one can fix the divergent contributions from tadpole and wave-function renormalisation using universal UV and IR behaviour.
We calculate the full set of the two-loop master integrals for heavy-to-light form factors of two different massive fermions for arbitrary momentum transfer in NNLO QCD or QED corrections. These integrals allow to determine the two-loop QCD or QED corrections to the amplitudes for heavy-to-light form factors of two massive fermions in a full analytical way, without any approximations. The analytical results of the master integrals are derived using the method of differential equations, along with a proper choosing of canonical basis for the master integrals. All the results of master integrals…
We study the QCD scattering amplitudes for \bar{q}q \to gg and \bar{q}q \to ggg where q is a massive fermion. Using a particular choice of massive fermion spinor we are able to derive very compact expressions for the partial spin amplitudes for the 2 \to 2 process. We then investigate the corresponding 2 \to 3 amplitudes using the BCFW recursion technique. For the helicity conserving partial amplitudes we again derive very compact expressions, but were unable to treat the helicity-flip amplitudes recursively, except for the case where all the gluon helicities are the same. We therefore evaluat…
$Z \to γγ$ decay amplitude is considered and proven to be zero due to properties of polarization vectors and Bose statistics. Triangular diagrams for a pseudoscalar $\to γγ$ and $Z \to γγ$ processes with massive fermions in the loop are explicitely calculated. In the Standard Model axial anomaly vanishes in the sum of these diagrams as Z boson is mixed with one of the Goldstone bosons.
We derive the integrated forms of specific initial-final tree-level four-parton antenna functions involving a massless initial-state parton and a massive final-state fermion as hard radiators. These antennae are needed in the subtraction terms required to evaluate the double real corrections to $t\bar{t}$ hadronic production at the NNLO level stemming from the partonic processes $q\bar{q}\to t\bar{t}q'\bar{q}'$ and $gg\to t\bar{t}q\bar{q}$.
The package aITALC has been developed for the automated calculation of radiative corrections to two-fermion production at $e^+ e^-$ colliders. The package uses Diana, Qgraf, Form, Fortran, FF, LoopTools, and further unix/linux tools. Numerical results are presented for $e^+e^- \to e^+e^-, mu^+mu^-, b \bar{s}, t \bar{c}$.
A new mechanism is proposed for generating neutrino masses radiatively through a non-minimal coupling to gravity of fermionic bilinears involving massive neutral fermions. Such coupling terms can arise in theories where the gravity sector is augmented by a scalar field. They necessarily violate the principle of equivalence, but such violations are not ruled out by present experiments. It is shown that the proposed mechanism is realised most convincingly in theories of the Randall- Sundrum type, where gravity couples strongly in the TeV range. The mechanism has the potential for solving both th…
We compute the three-loop QCD corrections to the massive quark-anti-quark-photon form factors $F_1$ and $F_2$ involving a closed loop of massless fermions. This subset is gauge invariant and contains both planar and non-planar contributions. We perform the reduction using FIRE and compute the master integrals with the help of differential equations. Our analytic results can be expressed in terms of Goncharov polylogarithms. We provide analytic results for all master integrals which are not present in the large-$N_c$ calculation considered in Refs. [1,2].
We evaluate the two-loop corrections to Bhabha scattering from fermion loops in the context of pure Quantum Electrodynamics. The differential cross section is expressed by a small number of Master Integrals with exact dependence on the fermion masses me, mf and the Mandelstam invariants s,t,u. We determine the limit of fixed scattering angle and high energy, assuming the hierarchy of scales me^2 << mf^2 << s,t,u. The numerical result is combined with the available non-fermionic contributions. As a by-product, we provide an independent check of the known electron-loop contributions.
We construct the grand partition function of the system of massive Dirac fermions in a uniform magnetic field from Landau levels, through which all thermodynamic quantities can be obtained. Making use of the Abel-Plana formula, these thermodynamic quantities can be expanded as power series with respect to the dimensionless variable $b=2eB/T^{2}$. The zero-field magnetic susceptibility is expanded at zero mass, and the leading order term is logarithmic. We also calculate scalar, vector current, axial vector current and energy-momentum tensor of the system through ensemble average approach. Mass…
WPHACT 2.0 is the new fully massive version of a MC program and unweighted event generator which computes all Standard Model processes with four fermions in the final state at e^+ e^- colliders. The program can now generate unweighted events for any subset of all four fermion final states in a single run, by making use of dedicated pre-samples which can cover the entire phase space. Improvements with respect to WPHACT 1.0 include the Imaginary Fermion Loop gauge restoring scheme, new phase space mappings, a new input system, the possibility to compute subsets of Feynman diagrams and options fo…
The bilinear combination of Dirac spinors $u(p_1,n_1)\bar u(p_2,n_2)$ is expressed in terms of Lorentz vectors in an explicit covariant form. The fact that the obtained expression involves only one auxiliary vector makes it very convenient for analytical computations with REDUCE (or FORM) package in the helicity formalism. The other advantage of the proposed formulas is that they are applicable to massive fermions as well as to massless fermions. The proposed approach is employed for the computation of one-loop Feynman diagrams and it is demonstrated that it considerably reduces the time of co…
Building on earlier work, the dipole subtraction formalism for photonic corrections is extended to various photon--fermion splittings where the resulting collinear singularities lead to corrections that are enhanced by logarithms of small fermion masses. The difference to the earlier treatment of photon radiation is that now no cancellation of final-state singularities is assumed, i.e. we allow for non-collinear-safe final-state radiation. Moreover, we consider collinear fermion production from incoming photons, forward-scattering of incoming fermions, and collinearly produced fermion-antiferm…
We present an analytical calculation of additional real or virtual radiation of the light fermion pair in the fermionic decay of the Higgs boson $ H \to f_1\bar f_1$ for arbitrary ratios of the Higgs boson mass to the $f_1$ fermion mass. This result gives us a value of the $O(N_f α_s^2)$ radiative correction to the inclusive decay rate $ H \to f_1\bar f_1$. Using this result in the framework of the Brodsky-Mackenzie-Lepage scheme, we discuss the scale setting in the one-loop QCD correction to the decay width $ H \to f_1\bar f_1$ for arbitrary relation between the Higgs boson and fermion masses…
We consider massive $SU(N)$ gauge theory with fermions. Gauge bosons become massive due to the interaction with the scalar field, whose vacuum average provides the spontaneous breakdown of gauge symmetry. We investigate Dyson - Schwinger equation for the fermion propagator written in ladder approximation and in Landau gauge. Our analysis demonstrates that the chiral symmetry breaking in the considered theory is the strong coupling phenomenon. There are the indications that there appears the second order phase transition between chirally broken and symmetric phases of the theory at the value of…
Following the previous paper arXiv:1205.4827, we formulate an S-matrix functional for massive fermion ultra-helicity-violating (UHV) amplitudes, i.e., scattering amplitudes of positive-helicity gluons and a pair of massive fermions. The S-matrix functional realizes a massive extension of the Cachazo-Svrcek-Witten (CSW) rules in a functional language. Mass-dimension analysis implies that interactions among gluons and massive fermions should be decomposed into three-point massive fermion subamplitudes. Namely, such interactions are represented by combinations of three-point UHV and next-to-UHV (…
We compute the covariant Wigner function for spin-1/2 fermions in an arbitrarily strong magnetic field by exactly solving the Dirac equation at non-zero fermion-number and chiral-charge densities. The Landau energy levels as well as a set of orthonormal eigenfunctions are found as solutions of the Dirac equation. With these orthonormal eigenfunctions we construct the fermion field operators and the corresponding Wigner-function operator. The Wigner function is obtained by taking the ensemble average of the Wigner-function operator in global thermodynamical equilibrium, i.e., at constant temper…
We report on recent results obtained for the massive operator matrix elements which contribute to the massive Wilson coefficients in deep-inelastic scattering for $Q^2 \gg m_i^2$ in case of sub-processes with two fermion lines and different mass assignment.
We present a much simpler analytic expression for the UV un-renormalized one-loop soft-gluon current which controls the infra-red behavior of one-loop QCD amplitudes with massive fermions when an external gluon becomes soft. The result is given entirely in terms of standard polylogarithms, is of uniform transcendentality and is well-suited for computer implementation.
We show that a massive fermion theory, while not invariant under the conventional chiral transformation, is invariant under a $m$-deformed chiral transformation. These transformations and the associated conserved charges are nonlocal but reduce to the usual transformations and charges when $m=0$. The $m$-deformed charges commute with helicity and satisfy the conventional chiral algebra.
Recently there has been an interest in studying the role that geometry may play in the problem of confining fermions to our four-dimensional spacetime. In general, the focus is on non-Riemannian geometries which possess fields like torsion and non-metricity. In this paper, the degrees of freedom present in the spin connection in a Riemannian manifold are used to confine fermions. It turns out that one can use this connection to trap these particles inside a brane.
Using Bloch-Nordsieck approximation fermion propagator in 3-dimensional gauge theory with topological mass is studied. Infrared divergence of Chern-Simon term is soft,which modifies anomalous dimension. In unquenched QCD with 2-component spinor anomalous dimension has fractional value,where order parmeter is divergent.
We present a complete computation of the inflaton decay into very massive fermions during preheating. We show that heavy fermions are produced very efficiently up to masses of order 10^{17}-10^{18} GeV; the accessible mass range is thus even broader than the one for heavy bosons. We apply our findings to the leptogenesis scenario, proposing a new version of it, in which the massive right-handed neutrinos, responsible for the generation of the baryon asymmetry, are produced during preheating. We also discuss other production mechanisms of right-handed neutrinos in the early Universe, identifyin…
We compute the shear viscosity and the electrical conductivity in gauge theories with massive fermions at leading order in the large N_f expansion. The calculation is organized using the 1/N_f expansion of the 2PI effective action to next-to-leading order. We show explicitly that the calculation is gauge fixing independent and consistent with the Ward identity. We find that these transport coefficients depend in a nontrivial manner on the coupling constant and fermion mass. For large mass, both the shear viscosity and the electrical conductivity go to zero.
We construct an explicit model to describe fermions confined on a four dimensional brane embedded in a five dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime. We extend previous works to accommodate massive bound states on the brane and exhibit the transverse structure of the fermionic fields. We estimate analytically and calculate numerically the fermion mass spectrum on the brane, which we show to be discrete. The confinement life-time of the bound states is evaluated, and it is shown that existing constraints can be made compatible with the existence of massive fermions trapped on the brane for duration…
We study massive spin-1/2 fermion production in nonsingular superstring cosmology, taking into account one-loop quantum corrections to a superstring effective action with dilaton and modulus fields. While no creation occurs in the massless limit, massive fermions can be produced by the existence of a time-dependent frequency. Due to the increase of the Hubble expansion rate during the modulus-driven phase, the occupation of number of fermions continues to grow until the point of the graceful exit, after which fermion creation ceases with the decrease of the Hubble rate.
We study the production and backreaction of massive vector-like fermions in the background of a classical SU(2) gauge field during axion-driven inflation. We demonstrate all ultraviolet divergences due to the interactions with the fermions can be absorbed by renormalization of the axion wavefunction and the gauge coupling. The effects of the fermion-axion interaction vanish in the massless limit as required by symmetry. For very massive fermions, contact interactions are induced between the axion, the gauge field and the gravitational field. In this massive limit, we find the usual axion-gauge…
We explain how one-loop amplitudes with massive fermions can be computed using only on-shell information. We first use the spinor-helicity formalism in six dimensions to perform generalised unitarity cuts in $d$ dimensions. We then show that divergent wavefunction cuts can be avoided, and the remaining ambiguities in the renormalised amplitudes can be fixed, by matching to universal infrared poles in $4-2ε$ dimensions and ultraviolet poles in $6-2ε$ dimensions. In the latter case we construct an effective Lagrangian in six dimensions and reduce the additional constraint to an on-shell tree-lev…
We derive a semi-classical effective action and the kinetic equation for massive Dirac fermions in electromagnetic fields. The non-Abelian Berry phase structure emerges from two helicity states of massive fermions with positive energy. The classical spin emerges as a vector in SU(2) helicity space. The continuity equations for the fermion number and the classical spin are derived. The fermion number is conserved while the spin charge is not conserved by anomaly. Previous results about the coefficients of the chiral magnetic effect for the fermion and axial currents in the chiral limit can be r…
A useful connection between two-loop massive vacuum integrals and one-loop off-shell triangle diagrams with massless internal particles is established for arbitrary values of the space-time dimension n.
We study the system of a massive fermion field confined between two parallel plates, where the properties of both plates are discussed under chiral MIT boundary conditions. We investigate the effects of the chiral angle on the Casimir energy for a massive fermion field with the general momentum. We find that the Casimir energy as a function of the chiral angle is generally symmetric, and the attractive Casimir force in the chiral case is stronger than that in the nonchiral case. In addition, we investigate the approximate Casimir energy for light and heavy mass cases. The behavior of the discr…
We investigate spectral properties of a fermion coupled with a massive gauge boson with a mass m at finite temperature (T) in the perturbation theory. The massive gauge boson is introduced as a U(1) gauge boson in the Stueckelberg formalism with a gauge parameter α. We find that the fermion spectral function has a three-peak structure for T \sim m irrespective of the choice of the gauge parameter, while it tends to have one faint peak at the origin and two peaks corresponding to the normal fermion and anti-plasmino excitations familiar in QED in the hard thermal loop approximation for T \gg m.…
We explore the phase structure of fermions in the U(N) Chern-Simons gauge theory in three dimensions using the large N limit where N is the number of colors and the fermions are taken to be in the fundamental representation of the U(N) gauge group. In the large N limit, the theory retains its classical conformal behavior and considerable attention has been paid to a possible AdS/CFT duality of the theory in the conformal phase. In this paper we present a solution for the massive phase of the fermion theory that is exact to the leading order of 't Hooft's large N expansion. We present evidence …
We find that the recently developed kinetic theories with spin for massive and massless fermions are smoothly connected. By introducing a reference-frame vector, we decompose the dipole-moment tensor into electric and magnetic dipole moments. We show that the axial-vector component of the Wigner function contains a contribution from the transverse magnetic dipole moment which accounts for the transverse spin degree of freedom (DOF) and vanishes smoothly in the massless limit. As a result, the kinetic equations, describing four DOF for massive fermions, becomes smoothly the chiral kinetic equat…
We derive the pseudoscalar condensate induced by anomaly and vorticity from the Wigner function for massive fermions in homogeneous electromagnetic fields. It has an anomaly term and a force-vorticity coupling term. As a mass effect, the pseudoscalar condensate is linearly proportional to the fermion mass in small mass expansion. By a generalization to two-flavor and three-flavor cases, the neutral pion and eta meson condensates are calculated from the Wigner function and have anomaly parts as well as force-vorticity parts, in which the anomaly part of the neutral pion condensate is consistent…
A detailed numerical analysis is performed to obtain the Hawking spectrum for charged, massive brane scalars and fermions on the approximate background of a brane charged rotating higher-dimensional black hole constructed in arXiv:0907.5107. We formulate the problem in terms of a "spinor-like" first order system of differential wave equations not only for fermions, but for scalars as well and integrate it numerically. Flux spectra are presented for non-zero mass, charge and rotation, confirming and extending previous results based on analytic approximations. In particular we describe an invert…
It is shown numerically, in a chiral U(1) gauge Higgs theory in which the left and right-handed fermion components have opposite U(1) charges, that the spectrum of gauge and Higgs fields surrounding a static fermion contains both a ground state and at least one stable excited state. To bypass the difficulties associated with dynamical fermions in a lattice chiral gauge theory we consider only static fermion sources in a quenched approximation, at fixed lattice spacing and couplings, and with a lattice action along the lines suggested long ago by Smit and Swift.
As has long been known, it is energetically favorable for massive fermions to deform the homogeneous vacuum around them, giving rise to extended bag-like objects. We study this phenomenon non-perturbatively in a model field theory, the $1+1$ dimensional Massive Gross-Neveu model, in the large $N$ limit. We prove that the bags in this model are necessarily time dependent. We calculate their masses variationally and demonstrate their stability. We find a non-analytic behavior in these masses as we approach the standard massless Gross-Neveu model and argue that this behavior is caused by the kink…
We analyze the theory of massive fermions in the fundamental representation coupled to a U(N) Chern-Simons gauge theory at level K. It is done in the large N, large K limits where λ=N/K is kept fixed. Following arXiv:1110.4386 we obtain the solution of a Schwinger-Dyson equation for the two point function, the exact expression for the fermion propagator and the partition function at finite temperature. We prove that in the large K limit there exists an infinite set of classically conserved high spin currents also when a mass is introduced, breaking the conformal invariance. In analogy to the s…
The side jump in the anomalous Lorentz transformation, arising from the spin-orbit interactions, plays important roles in various intriguing physics, such as chiral vortical effects and spin polarization. In this work, the side jump of the spin-half massive particles, which has rarely been discussed, is visualized and evaluated for the first time. A compact analytical expression describing such side jumps is derived, and found approaching the one describing the chiral fermions in the massless limit. It is further demonstrated that the covariance of the total angular momentum, which would be br…
In the Einstein-Cartan theory of torsion-free gravity coupling to massless fermions, the four-fermion interaction is induced and its strength is a function of the gravitational and gauge couplings, as well as the Immirzi parameter. We study the dynamics of the four-fermion interaction to determine whether effective bilinear terms of massive fermion fields are generated. Calculating one-particle-irreducible two-point functions of fermion fields, we identify three different phases and two critical points for phase transitions characterized by the strength of four-fermion interaction: (1) chiral …
Non-perturbative production of fermions after chaotic inflation has been the object of several studies in the very recent past. However, the results in the most interesting case of production of massive fermions in an expanding Universe were so far known only numerically. We provide very simple and readable analytical formulae, both for the spectra of the created fermions and for their total energy density. Their derivation is closely related to the one adopted for bosons and exploits the fact that the production occurs during very short intervals of nonadiabatical change of the fermionic freq…
