It is demonstrated that a nonrelativistic quantum scale anomaly manifests itself in the appearance of composite operators with complex scaling dimensions. In particular, we study nonrelativistic quantum mechanics with an inverse square potential and consider a composite s-wave operator O=ψψ. We analytically compute the scaling dimension of this operator and determine the propagator <0|T O O^{\dagger}|0>. The operator O represents an infinite tower of bound states with a geometric energy spectrum. Operators with higher angular momenta are briefly discussed.
The old problem of a singular, inverse square potential in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is treated employing a field-theoretic, functional renormalization method. An emergent contact coupling flows to a fixed point or develops a limit cycle depending on the discriminant of its quadratic beta function. We analyze the fixed points in both conformal and non-conformal phases and perform a natural extension of the renormalization group analysis to complex values of the contact coupling. Physical interpretation and motivation for this extension is the presence of an inelastic scattering channel…
We study Weyl symmetry for non-relativistic conformal filed theories on curved spatial spaces, and calculate it's quantum anomaly. We show that there is no geometric anomaly, and the non-relativistic Weyl anomaly can appear only due to interaction. Also we study the anomaly by using the light-cone approach.
Using the heat kernel method, we compute nonrelativistic trace anomalies for Schrödinger theories in flat spacetime, with a generic background gauge field for the particle number symmetry, both for a free scalar and a free fermion. The result is genuinely nonrelativistic, and it has no counterpart in the relativistic case. Contrary to the naive expectations, the anomaly is not gauge-invariant; this is similar to the non-gauge covariance of the non-abelian relativistic anomaly. We also show that, in the same background, the gravitational anomaly for a nonrelativistic scalar vanishes.
We regulate in Euclidean space the Jacobian under scale transformations for two-dimensional nonrelativistic fermions and bosons interacting via contact interactions and compare the resulting scaling anomalies. For fermions, Grassmannian integration inverts the Jacobian: however, this effect is cancelled by the regularization procedure and a result similar to that of bosons is attained. We show the independence of the result with respect to the regulating function, and show the robustness of our methods by comparing the procedure with an effective potential method using both cutoff and $ζ$-func…
Nonrelativistic string theory is a unitary, ultraviolet finite quantum gravity theory with a nonrelativistic string spectrum. The vertex operators of the worldsheet theory determine the spacetime geometry of nonrelativistic string theory, known as the string Newton-Cartan geometry. We compute the Weyl anomaly of the nonrelativistic string worldsheet sigma model describing strings propagating in a string Newton-Cartan geometry, Kalb-Ramond and dilaton background. We derive the equations of motion that dictate the backgrounds on which nonrelativistic string theory can be consistently defined qua…
We propose to use a two-species Fermi gas with the interspecies s-wave Feshbach resonance to realize p-wave superfluidity in two dimensions. By confining one species of fermions in a two-dimensional plane immersed in the background three-dimensional Fermi sea of the other species, an attractive interaction is induced between two-dimensional fermions. We compute the pairing gap in the weak-coupling regime and show that it has the symmetry of p_x+ip_y. Because the magnitude of the pairing gap increases toward the unitarity limit, it is possible that the critical temperature for the p_x+ip_y-wave…
In order to understand a boundary description of Hawking radiation in the AdS/CFT correspondence, we investigate the trace anomaly method in AdS$_2$ space. In this method, Hawking radiation is derived from the trace anomaly of the energy-momentum tensor in the bulk. We find a correspondence between the energy-momentum tensor and a composite operator in CFT$_1$ and understand the anomalous properties of the energy-momentum tensor in terms of this composite operator. By using this correspondence, we reproduce Hawking radiation from the boundary description. In addition, we find a correspondence …
We discuss the idea that the model-independent (MI) axion of string theory is the source of quintessential dark energy. The scenario is completed with a composite QCD axion from hidden sector squark condensation that could serve as dark matter candidate. The mechanism relies on the fact that the hidden sector anomaly contribution to the composite axion is much smaller than the QCD anomaly term. This intuitively surprising scenario is based on the fact that below the hidden sector scale $Λ_h$ there are many light hidden sector quarks. Simply, by counting engineering dimensions the hidden sector…
The Standard Model with a light Higgs provides a very accurate description of the electroweak precision observables. The largest deviation between the Standard Model predictions and the experimental measurements, the forward-backward asymmetry of the bottom quark A{FB}^b, can be interpreted as an indication of new physics at the TeV scale. The strong agreement between theory and experiment in the branching fraction of the Z into b-quarks puts strong constraints for new physics aiming to solve the A{FB}^b puzzle. We study a class of natural composite Higgs models that can solve the A{FB}^b anom…
In this paper we calculate the scale anomaly for a quantum field theoretic 2D-nonrelativistic Bose gas with contact interactions using Fujikawa's method, both in vacuum and in many-body systems. The use of path integrals for these problems is novel and motivated by a recently developed path-integral framework for addressing questions about scaling in these systems. A natural class of regulators is found that produces the correct value of the anomaly traditionally calculated via other methods, e.g., diagrammatically via the beta function.
We reconsider the low-energy effective theory for Higgs-less electroweak symmetry breaking: we study the anomaly-matching in the situation where all Goldstone fields disappear from the spectrum as a result of the Higgs mechanism. We find that the global SU(2)_L x SU(2)_R x U(1)_{B-L} symmetry of the underlying theory, which is spontaneously broken to SU(2)_{L+R} x U(1)_{B-L} has to be anomaly-free. For the sake of generality, we include the possibility of light spin-1/2 bound states resulting from the dynamics of the strongly-interacting symmetry-breaking sector, in addition to the Goldstone b…
We consider the most general fractional background fluxes in the color, flavor, and baryon number directions, compatible with the faithful action of the global symmetry of a given theory. We call the obstruction to gauging symmetries revealed by such backgrounds the baryon-color-flavor (BCF) 't Hooft anomaly. We apply the BCF anomaly to vector-like theories, with fermions in higher-dimensional representations of arbitrary N-ality, and derive non-trivial constraints on their IR dynamics. In particular, this class of theories enjoys an independent discrete chiral symmetry and one may ask about t…
Light fermions that arise as composite states in confining gauge theories are stable due to fermion number conservation. This leads to Dark Matter candidates that behave similarly to elementary DM but where the cosmological stability arises automatically from the accidental symmetries of the theory. We present explicit models based on 't Hooft anomaly matching conditions where DM is charged under the SM. For example an SU(N) gauge theory with fermions in the adjoint rep and triplet of SU(2)$_L$ gives rise to DM made of multiple "Wino" triplets, while SO(N) gauge theories with $N_F=N-4$ flavors…
We discuss the signature of the anomalous breaking of the superconformal symmetry in $\mathcal{N}=1$ super Yang Mills theory, mediated by the Ferrara-Zumino hypercurrent ($\mathcal{J}$) with two vector ($\mathcal V$) supercurrents $(\mathcal{JVV})$ and its manifestation in the anomaly action, in the form of anomaly poles. This allows to investigate in a unified way both conformal and chiral anomalies. The analysis is performed in parallel to the Standard Model, for comparison. We investigate, in particular, massive deformations of the $\mathcal{N}=1$ theory and the spectral densities of the an…
Using the exact renormalization group (ERG) formalism, we study the gauge invariant composite operators in QED. Gauge invariant composite operators are introduced as infinitesimal changes of the gauge invariant Wilson action. We examine the dependence on the gauge fixing parameter of both the Wilson action and gauge invariant composite operators. After defining ``gauge fixing parameter independence,'' we show that any gauge independent composite operators can be made ``gauge fixing parameter independent'' by appropriate normalization. As an application, we give a concise but careful proof of t…
We analyze, from a canonical quantum field theory perspective, the problem of one-dimensional particles with three-body attractive interactions, which was recently shown to exhibit a scale anomaly identical to that observed in two-dimensional systems with two-body interactions. We study in detail the properties of the scattering amplitude including both bound and scattering states, using cutoff and dimensional regularization, and clarify the connection between the scale anomaly derived from thermodynamics to the non-vanishing nonrelativistic trace of the energy-momentum tensor.
We introduce a scalar-less anomaly free chiral gauge theory that serves as natural ultraviolet completion of models of fundamental composite (Goldstone) Higgs dynamics. The new theory is able to generate the top mass and furthermore features a built-in protection mechanism that naturally suppresses the bottom mass. At low energies the theory predicts new fractionally charged fermions, and a number of four-fermion operators that, besides being relevant for the generation of the top mass, also lead to an intriguing phenomenology for the new states predicted by the theory.
A new approach towards the composite structure of quarks and leptons in the context of the higher dimensional unified theories is proposed. Owing to the certain strong dynamics, much like an ordinary QCD, every possible vectorlike multiplets of composites appear in higher dimensional bulk space-time, however, through a proper Sherk-Schwarz compactification only chiral set of composite quarks and leptons survive as the massless states in four dimensions. In this scenario restrictions related with the 't Hooft's anomaly matching condition are turned out to be avoided and, as a result, the compos…
The point-splitting regularization technique for composite operators is discussed in connection with anomaly calculation. We present a pedagogical and self-contained review of the topic with an emphasis on the technical details. We also develop simple algebraic tools to handle the path ordered exponential insertions used within the covariant and non-covariant version of the point-splitting method. The method is then applied to the calculation of the chiral, vector, trace, translation and Lorentz anomalies within diverse versions of the point-splitting regularization and a connection between th…
We provide evidence for conjectural dualities between nonrelativistic Chern-Simons-matter theories and theories of (fractional, nonAbelian) quantum Hall fluids in $2+1$ dimensions. At low temperatures, the dynamics of nonrelativistic Chern-Simons-matter theories can be described in terms of a nonrelativistic quantum mechanics of vortices. At critical coupling, this may be solved by geometric quantisation of the vortex moduli space. Using localisation techniques, we compute the Euler characteristic $χ(\mathcal{L}^λ)$ of an arbitrary power $λ$ of a quantum line bundle $\mathcal{L}$ on the moduli…
We study supergravity models in four dimensions where the hidden sector is superconformal and strongly-coupled over several decades of energy below the Planck scale, before undergoing spontaneous breakdown of scale invariance and supersymmetry. We show that large anomalous dimensions can suppress Kahler contact terms between the hidden and visible sectors, leading to models in which the hidden sector is "sequestered" and anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking can naturally dominate, thus solving the supersymmetric flavor problem. We construct simple, explicit models of the hidden sector based…
The standard model is a remarkably consistent and complete quantum field theory but its coupling to gravity and the Higgs field remain problematic, as reflected in the cosmological constant problem, the Weyl anomaly, and the hierarchy puzzle. We point out that 36 conformally-coupled dimension-zero scalar fields can simultaneously cancel the vacuum energy and both terms in the Weyl anomaly, if the Higgs field is emergent. The cancellation is highly non-trivial: given the standard model gauge group $SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)$, it requires precisely $48$ Weyl fermions, {\it i.e.}, three genera…
Quantum scale invariant regularization is a variant of dimensional regularization where the renormalization scale is treated as a dynamical field. But, rather than be regarded as a novel regularization method on par with dimensional regularization, momentum cutoff, Pauli-Villars etc., it should be understood as a way to define a subset in the infinite space of nonrenormalizable models of certain type. The subset realizes the demand that renormalization scale, along with any other dimensionful parameters, should be interpreted as a dynamical field's homogeneous background. This restriction is m…
The bicrossproduct model λ-Minkowski (or `κ-Minkowski') quantum spacetime has an anomaly for the action of the Poincaré quantum group which was resolved by an extra cotangent direction θ' not visible classically. We show that gauging a coefficient of θ' introduces gravity into the model. We solve and analyse the model nonrelativisticaly in a 1/r potential, finding an induced constant term in the effective potential energy and a weakening and separation of the effective gravitational and inertial masses as the test particle Klein-Gordon mass increases. The present work is intended as a proof of…
We give a brief review of the Quantum Hall effect in higher dimensions and its relation to fuzzy spaces. For a quantum Hall system, the lowest Landau level dynamics is given by a one-dimensional matrix action. This can be used to write down a bosonized noncommutative field theory describing the interactions of higher dimensional nonrelativistic fermions with abelian or nonabelian gauge fields in the lowest Landau level. This general approach is applied explicitly to the case of QHE on ${\bf CP}^k$. It is shown that in the semiclassical limit the effective action contains a bulk Chern-Simons ty…
Non-commutative Quantum Mechanics in 3D is investigated in the framework of the abelian Drinfeld twist which deforms a given Hopf algebra while preserving its Hopf algebra structure. Composite operators (of coordinates and momenta) entering the Hamiltonian have to be reinterpreted as primitive elements of a dynamical Lie algebra which could be either finite (for the harmonic oscillator) or infinite (in the general case). The deformed brackets of the deformed angular momenta close the so(3) algebra. On the other hand, undeformed rotationally invariant operators can become, under deformation, an…
