Given any (Feynman) propagator which is Lorentz and translation invariant, it is possible to construct an action functional for a scalar field such that the quantum field theory, obtained by path integral quantization, leads to this propagator. In general, such a theory will involve derivatives of the field higher than two and can even involve derivatives of infinite order. The poles of the given propagator determine the dispersion relation for the excitations of this field. I show that it is possible to construct field theories in which the dispersion relation is the same as that of standard Klein-Gordan field, even though the Lagrangian contains derivatives of infinite order. I provide a concrete example of this situation starting from a propagator which incorporates the effects of the zero-point-length of the spacetime. I compare the path integral approach with an alternative, operator-based approach, and highlight the advantages of using the former.
We study momentum space dispersion formulas in general QFTs and their applications for CFT correlation functions. We show, using two independent methods, that QFT dispersion formulas can be written in terms of causal commutators. The first derivation uses analyticity properties of retarded correlators in momentum space. The second derivation uses the largest time equation and the defining properties of the time-ordered product. At four points we show that the momentum space QFT dispersion formula depends on the same causal double-commutators as the CFT dispersion formula. At $n$-points, the QF…
For 2-2 scattering in quantum field theories, the usual fixed $t$ dispersion relation exhibits only two-channel symmetry. This paper considers a crossing symmetric dispersion relation, reviving certain old ideas in the 1970s. Rather than the fixed $t$ dispersion relation, this needs a dispersion relation in a different variable $z$, which is related to the Mandelstam invariants $s,t,u$ via a parametric cubic relation making the crossing symmetry in the complex $z$ plane a geometric rotation. The resulting dispersion is manifestly three-channel crossing symmetric. We give simple derivations of …
It has been argued that Horava gravity needs to be extended to include terms that mix spatial and time derivatives in order avoid unacceptable violations of Lorentz invariance in the matter sector. In an earlier paper we have shown that including such mixed derivative terms generically leads to 4th instead of 6th order dispersion relations and this could be (naively) interpreted as a threat to renormalizability. We have also argued that power-counting renormalizability is not actually compromised, but instead the simplest power-counting renormalizable model is not unitary. In this paper we con…
The critical behavior of infinite families of shift symmetric interacting theories with higher derivative kinetic terms (non unitary) is considered. Single scalar theories with shift symmetry are classified according to their upper critical dimensions and studied at the leading non trivial order in perturbation theory. For two infinite families, one with quartic and one with cubic interactions, beta functions, criticality conditions and universal anomalous dimensions are computed. At the order considered, the cubic theories enjoy a one loop non renormalization of the vertex, so that the beta f…
Various forms of derivative dispersion relations, in which the dispersion integral is replaced by a series of derivatives of the imaginary part of a scattering amplitude, are reviewed. Conditions of their validity and practical applicability as well as their relevance to high-energy small-angle hadron-hadron scattering are discussed.
We consider the Green's functions associated to a scalar field propagating on a curved, ultra-static background, in the presence of modified dispersion relations. The usual proper-time deWitt-Schwinger procedure to obtain a series representation of the Green's functions is doomed to failure, because of higher order spatial derivatives in the Klein-Gordon operator. We show how to overcome this difficulty by considering a preferred frame, associated to a unit time-like vector. With respect to this frame, we can express the Green's functions as an integral over all frequencies of a space-dependen…
This paper is devoted to study the thermal aspects of a photon gas within the context of Planck-scale-modified dispersion relations. We study the spectrum of radiation and the correction to the \textit{Stefan$-$Boltzmann} law in different cases when the Lorentz symmetry is no longer preserved. Explicitly, we examine two models within the context of CPT$-$even and CPT$-$odd sectors respectively. To do so, three distinct scenarios of the Universe are considered: the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the electroweak epoch, and the inflationary era. Moreover, the equations of state in these cases…
We discuss some formal and practical aspects related to the replacement of Integral Dispersion Relations (IDR) by derivative forms, without high-energy approximations. We first demonstrate that, for a class of functions with physical interest as forward scattering amplitudes, this replacement can be analytically performed, leading to novel Extended Derivative Dispersion Relations (EDDR), which, in principle, are valid for any energy above the physical threshold. We then verify the equivalence between the IDR and EDDR by means of a popular parametrization for total cross sections from proton-pr…
We revisit the mixed derivative extension of Hořava gravity which was designed to address the naturalness problems of the standard theory in the presence of matter couplings. We consider the minimal theory with mixed derivative terms that contain two spatial and two temporal derivatives. Including all terms compatible with the (modified) scaling rules and the foliation preserving diffeomorphisms, we calculate the dispersion relations of propagating modes. We find that the theory contains four propagating degrees of freedom, as opposed to three in the standard Hořava gravity. The new degree of …
In this paper, we obtain dispersion relations corresponding to plane wave solutions in various Lorentz-breaking extensions of gravity with dimensions 3, 4, 5 and 6. We demonstrate that these dispersion relations display an usual Lorentz-invariant mode when the corresponding additive term involves higher derivatives.
We discuss some formal and fundamental aspects related with the replacement of integral dispersion relations by derivative forms, and their practical uses in high energy elastic hadron scattering, in particular $pp$ and $\bar{p}p$ scattering. Starting with integral relations with one subtraction and considering parametrizations for the total cross sections belonging to the class of entire functions in the logarithm of the energy, a series of results is deduced and our main conclusions are the following: (1) except for the subtraction constant, the derivative forms do not depend on any addition…
We consider the problem of calculating the Green's functions associated to a massive scalar field with modified dispersion relations. We analyze the case when dispersion is modified by higher derivative spatial operators acting on the field orthogonally to a preferred direction, determined by a unit time-like vector field. By assuming that the integral curves of the vector field are geodesics, we expand the modified Klein-Gordon equation in Fermi normal coordinates. By means of a Fourier transform, we find a series representation in momentum-space of the Green's functions. The coefficients of …
We present a method for computing the spectrum of black hole radiation of a scalar field satisfying a wave equation with high frequency dispersion. The method involves a combination of Laplace transform and WKB techniques for finding approximate solutions to ordinary differential equations. The modified wave equation is obtained by adding a higher order derivative term suppressed by powers of a fundamental momentum scale $k_0$ to the ordinary wave equation. Depending on the sign of this new term, high frequency modes propagate either superluminally or subluminally. We show that the resulting s…
Vacuum polarisation in QED in a background gravitational field induces interactions which effectively violate the strong equivalence principle and affect the propagation of light. In the low frequency limit, Drummond and Hathrell have shown that this mechanism leads to superluminal photon velocities. To confront this phenomenon with causality, however, it is necessary to extend the calculation of the phase velocity $\vp(\w)$ to high frequencies, since it is $\vp(\infty)$ which determines the characteristics of the effective wave equation and thus the causal structure. In this paper, we use a r…
Higher derivative Hořava-Lifshitz fermions: from superconductivity to atomic spectroscopy
Universidade Federal da Paraíba（帕拉伊巴联邦大学）；Universidade Federal de Campina Grande（坎皮纳格兰德联邦大学）；Khazar University（哈扎尔大学）；Centre of Excellence ENSEMBLE3 Sp. z o. o.（ENSEMBLE3卓越中心有限公司）；Damghan University（达姆甘大学）；Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte（北里奥格兰德州联邦教育、科学与技术学院）
We study the nonlinear energy diffusion through the SYK chain in the framework of Schwinger-Keldysh effective field theory. We analytically construct the interacting effective Lagrangian up to $40^{th}$ order in the derivative expansion. According to this effective Lagrangian, we calculate the first order loop correction of the energy density response function, the pole of which is the dispersion relation of energy diffusion. As expected, we see that the standard derivative expansion of that dispersion relation, $ω=-i D_{(1)} k^2- i D_{(2)} k^4+\mathcal{O}(k^6)$, breaks down due to the long-ti…
We consider the dispersion relation of the shear-diffusion mode in relativistic hydrodynamics, which we generate to high order as a series in spatial momentum q for a holographic model. We demonstrate that the hydrodynamic series can be summed in a way that extends through branch cuts present in the complex q plane, resulting in the accurate description of multiple sheets. Each additional sheet corresponds to the dispersion relation of a different non-hydrodynamic mode. As an example we extract the frequencies of a pair of oscillatory non-hydrodynamic black hole quasinormal modes from the hydr…
We consider modified dispersion relations in quantum field theory on curved space-time. Such relations, despite breaking the local Lorentz invariance at high energy, are considered in several phenomenological approaches to quantum gravity. Their existence involves a modification of the formalism of quantum field theory, starting from the problem of finding the scalar Green's functions up to the renormalization of various quantum expectation values. In this work we consider a simple example of such modifications, in the case of ultra-static metric. We show how to overcome the lack of Lorentz in…
Making use of a recursive approach, derivative dispersion relations are generalized for an arbitrary number of subtractions. The results for both cross even and odd amplitudes are theoretically consistent at sufficiently high energies and in the region of small momentum transfer.
In this paper, we investigate an electrodynamics in which the physical modes are coupled to a Lorentz-violating (LV) background by means of a higher-derivative term. We analyze the modes associated with the dispersion relations (DRs) obtained from the poles of the propagator. More specifically, we study Maxwell's electrodynamics modified by a LV operator of mass dimension 6. The modification has the form ${D_{βα}}\partial_σF^{σβ}\partial_λ F^{λα}$, i.e., it possesses two additional derivatives coupled to a \textit{CPT}-even tensor $D_{βα}$ that plays the role of the fixed background. We first …
We consider the higher-derivative Lorentz-breaking extension of QED, where the new terms are the Myers-Pospelov-like ones in gauge and spinor sectors, and the higher--derivative CFJ term. For this theory, we study its tree-level dynamics, discuss the dispersion relation, and present one more scheme for its perturbative generation, including the finite temperature case. Also, we develop a method to study perturbative unitarity based on consistent rotation of the theory to Euclidean space. We use this method to verify explicitly that for special choices of the Lorentz-breaking vector, the unitar…
In this work, we study the higher-derivative massive gravity in $D$-dimensional space-time with the mass term arisen due to a 2-brane embedded in a $4D$ Minkowski spacetime. We consider the effect of a resonance mass term from the DGP braneworld model for the higher-derivative massive gravity. Moreover, we add the gravitational Chern-Simons and Ricci-Cotton terms to this model and evaluate the graviton propagator using a basis of Barnes-Rivers spin projectors. Using the obtained propagator, we proceed with discussing the consistency of the model, writing the dispersion relations, and analyzing…
We consider the low-energy effective field theory describing the infrared dynamics of non-dissipative fluids. We extend previous work to accommodate conserved charges, and we clarify the matching between field theory variables and thermodynamical ones. We discuss the systematics of the derivative expansion, for which field theory offers a conceptually clear and technically neat scheme. As an example, we compute the correction to the sound-wave dispersion relation coming from a sample second-order term. This formalism forms the basis for a study of anomalies in hydrodynamics via effective field…
We study inflationary solution in an extension of mimetic gravity with the higher derivative interactions coupled to gravity. Because of the higher derivative interactions, the setup is free from the ghost and gradient instabilities while it hosts a number of novel properties. The dispersion relation of scalar perturbations develops quartic momentum correction similar to the setup of ghost inflation. Furthermore, the tilt of tensor perturbations can take either signs with a modified consistency relation between the tilt and the amplitude of tensor perturbations. Despite the presence of higher …
We show that the variation of the ground state entanglement in linear, higher spatial derivatives field theories at zero-temperature have signatures of phase transition. Around the critical point, when the dispersion relation changes from linear to non-linear, there is a fundamental change in the reduced density matrix leading to a change in the scaling of entanglement entropy. We suggest possible explanations involving both kinematical and dynamical effects. We discuss the implication of our work for 2-D condensed matter systems, black-hole entropy and models of quantum gravity.
We discuss the evaluation of the real part of the elementary amplitudes in the context of a multiple diffraction model for $pp$ elastic scattering earlier developed. The framework is based on the concepts of analyticity and polynomial boundedness, and the techniques of dispersion relations. Novel results concern the use of derivative dispersion relations at the elementary level (constituent-constituent interactions) and an optimization of these relations in terms of one free parameter. In addition to a theoretical improvement, we achieved a satisfactory description of the physical quantities.
We study the effects of the trans-Planckian dispersion relation on the spectrum of the primordial density perturbations during inflation. In contrast to the earlier analyses, we do not assume any specific form of the dispersion relation and allow the initial state of the field to be arbitrary. We obtain the spectrum of vacuum fluctuations of the quantum field by considering a scalar field satisfying the linear wave equation with higher spatial derivative terms propagating in the de Sitter space-time. We show that the power spectrum does not strongly depend on the dispersion relation and that t…
We calculate the lattice dispersion relation for three dimensional simulations of scalar fields. We argue that the mode frequency of scalar fields on the lattice should not be treated as a function of the magnitude of its wavevector but rather of its wavevector decomposition in Fourier space. Furthermore, we calculate how the lattice dispersion relation differs depending on the way that spatial derivatives are discretized when using finite difference methods in configuration space. For applications that require the mode frequency as an average function of the magnitude of the wavevector, we sh…
We address the issue of large-order expansions in strong-field QED. Our approach is based on the one-loop effective action encoded in the associated photon polarisation tensor. We concentrate on the simple case of crossed fields aiming at possible applications of high-power lasers to measure vacuum birefringence. A simple next-to-leading order derivative expansion reveals that the indices of refraction increase with frequency. This signals normal dispersion in the small-frequency regime where the derivative expansion makes sense. To gain information beyond that regime we determine the factoria…
The possibility of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in momentum space in a generic Lifshitz scalar model - a non-relativistic scalar field theory with higher spatial derivative terms - has been studied. We show that the minimum energy state, the ground state, has a lattice structure, where the translation invariance of the continuum theory is reduced to a discrete translation symmetry. The scale of translation symmetry breaking (or induced lattice spacing) is proportional to the inverse of the momentum of the condensate particle. The crystalline ground state is stable under excitations below a ce…
Dispersion relations for S-matrices and CFT correlators translate UV consistency into bounds on IR observables. In this note, we construct dispersive sum rules for 1D CFTs. We use them to prove bounds on higher-derivative couplings in weakly-coupled non-gravitational EFTs in AdS$_2$. At the leading order in the bulk-point limit, the bounds agree with the flat-space result. We compute the leading universal effect of finite AdS radius on the bounds. Along the way, we give an explicit formula for anomalous dimensions in general higher-derivative contact Witten diagrams in AdS$_2$.
We discuss the associativity or WDVV equations and demonstrate that they can be rewritten as certain functional relations between the {\it second} derivatives of a single function, similar to the dispersionless Hirota equations. The properties of these functional relations are further discussed.
We derive new effective field theory (EFT) positivity bounds on the elastic $2\to2$ scattering amplitudes of massive spinning particles from the standard UV properties of unitarity, causality, locality and Lorentz invariance. By bounding the $t$ derivatives of the amplitude (which can be represented as angular momentum matrix elements) in terms of the total ingoing helicity, we derive stronger unitarity bounds on the $s$- and $u$-channel branch cuts which determine the dispersion relation. In contrast to previous positivity bounds, which relate the $t$-derivative to the forward-limit EFT ampli…
The density of electronic one-particle states in monolayer graphene is studied by performing the Hybrid Monte-Carlo simulations of the tight-binding model for electrons on the pi orbitals of carbon atoms which make up the graphene lattice. Density of states is approximated as a derivative of the number of particles over the chemical potential at sufficiently small temperature. Simulations are performed in the partially quenched approximation, in which virtual particles and holes have zero chemical potential. It is found that the Van Hove singularity becomes much sharper than in the free tight-…
This paper shows a new approach to obtain analytical topological defects of a 2D Myers-Pospelov Lagrangian for two scalar fields. Such a Lagrangian presents higher-order kinetic terms, which lead us to equations of motion which are non-trivial to be integrated. Here we describe three possible scenarios for the equations of motion, named by timelike, spacelike and lightlike respectively. We started our investigation with a kink-like travelling wave Ansatz for the free theory, which led us to constraints for the dispersion relations of each scenario. We also introduced a procedure to obtain anal…
One may believe that front velocities of waves in a given theory coincide with the UV limit of phase velocities for any dispersion relations. This implies that IR physics is irrelevant to the discussion of propagation speed of waves. We first consider a theory that contains higher spatial derivatives in the wave equation and prove that front velocities coincide with the UV limit of phase velocities, at least, if parity is conserved. However, we also show that front velocities do not coincide with the UV limit of phase velocities in general dispersion relations. We explicitly give several examp…
We entertain the possibility that dark energy arises from the Higgs field of quintessence type in the non-perturbative regimes. For this purpose we utilize a set of exact solutions of Higgs field theory recently devised, in terms of Jacobi elliptical function for a massless quartic scalar field, that satisfy a massive dispersion relation. In certain regions of the parameter space, determined by the quartic coupling value, we show that such solutions have the property to give the correct behavior for the equation of state of the dark energy depending on the initial $θ$ value of periodicity of t…
Non-linear electrodynamic models are re-assessed in this paper to pursue an investigation of the kinematics of the Compton effect in a magnetic background. Before considering specific models, we start off by presenting a general non-linear Lagrangian built up in terms of the most general Lorentz- and gauge-invariant combinations of the electric and magnetic fields. The extended Maxwell-like equations and the energy-momentum tensor conservation are presented and discussed in their generality. We next expand the fields around a uniform and time-independent electric and magnetic backgrounds up to…
Addition of higher nonlinear terms to the well known integrable nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations, keeping the same linear dispersion (LD) usually makes the system nonintegrable. We present a systematic method through a novel Eckhaus-Kundu hierarchy, which can generate higher nonlinearities in the NLS and derivative NLS equations preserving their integrability. Moreover, similar nonlinear integrable extensions can be made again in a hierarchical way for each of the equations in the known integrable NLS and derivative NLS hierarchies with higher order LD, without changing their LD.
