Quantum Groups, Roots of Unity and Particles on quantized Anti-de Sitter Space

Abstract

Quantum groups in general and the quantum Anti-de Sitter group $U_q(so(2,3))$ in particular are studied from the point of view of quantum field theory. We show that if $q$ is a suitable root of unity, there exist finite-dimensional, unitary representations corresponding to essentially all the classical one-particle representations with (half)integer spin, with the same structure at low energies as in the classical case. In the massless case for spin $\geq 1$, the "naive" representations are unitarizable only after factoring out a subspace of "pure gauges", as classically. Unitary many-particle representations are defined, with the correct classical limit. Furthermore, we identify a remarkable element $Q$ in the center of $U_q(g)$, which plays the role of a BRST operator in the case of $U_q(so(2,3))$ at roots of unity, for any spin $\geq 1$. The associated ghosts are an intrinsic part of the indecomposable representations. We show how to define an involution on algebras of creation and anihilation operators at roots of unity, in an example corresponding to non-identical particles. It is shown how nonabelian gauge fields appear naturally in this framework, without having to define connections on fiber bundles. Integration on Quantum Euclidean space and sphere and on Anti-de Sitter space is studied as well. We give a conjecture how $Q$ can be used in general to analyze the structure of indecomposable representations, and to define a new, completely reducible associative (tensor) product of representations at roots of unity, which generalizes the standard "truncated" tensor product as well as our many-particle representations.