arXiv subjects

Joannis Papavassiliou

Publications and source records attributed to Joannis Papavassiliou.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2006

Gluon mass generation in the PT-BFM scheme

In this article we study the general structure and special properties of the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the gluon propagator constructed with the pinch technique, together with the question of how to obtain infrared finite solutions, associated with the generation of an effective gluon mass. Exploiting the known all-order correspondence between the pinch technique and the background field method, we demonstrate that, contrary to the standard formulation, the non-perturbative gluon self-energy is transverse order-by-order in the dressed loop expansion, and separately for gluonic and ghost contributions. We next present a comprehensive review of several subtle issues relevant to the search of infrared finite solutions, paying particular attention to the role of the seagull graph in enforcing transversality, the necessity of introducing massless poles in the three-gluon vertex, and the incorporation of the correct renormalization group properties. In addition, we present a method for regulating the seagull-type contributions based on dimensional regularization; its applicability depends crucially on the asymptotic behavior of the solutions in the deep ultraviolet, and in particular on the anomalous dimension of the dynamically generated gluon mass. A linearized version of the truncated Schwinger-Dyson equation is derived, using a vertex that satisfies the required Ward identity and contains massless poles belonging to different Lorentz structures. The resulting integral equation is then solved numerically, the infrared and ultraviolet properties of the obtained solutions are examined in detail, and the allowed range for the effective gluon mass is determined. Various open questions and possible connections with different approaches in the literature are discussed.

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arXiv2006

CPT and Quantum Mechanics Tests with Kaons

In this review we first discuss the theoretical motivations for possible CPT violation and deviations from ordinary quantum-mechanical behavior of field-theoretic systems in the context of an extended class of quantum-gravity models. Then we proceed to a description of precision tests of CPT symmetry using mainly neutral kaons. We emphasize the possibly unique role of neutral meson factories in providing specific tests of models where the quantum-mechanical CPT operator is not well-defined, leading to modifications of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen particle correlators. Finally, we present tests of CPT, T, and CP using charged kaons, and in particular K_l4 decays, which are interesting due to the high statistics attainable in experiments.

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arXiv2005

Neutrino-Nuclear Coherent Scattering and the Effective Neutrino Charge Radius

We propose to extract the value of the effective neutrino charge radius from the coherent scattering of a neutrino against a heavy nucleus. In such an experiment the relevant quantity to measure is the kinetic energy distribution of the recoiling nucleus, which, in turn, may be directly related to the shift in the value of the effective weak mixing angle produced by the neutrino charge radius. This type of experiment has been proposed in order to observe the coherent elastic neutrino-nuclear scattering for the first time. If interpreted in the way suggested in this work, such an experiment would constitute the first terrestrial attempt to measure this intrinsic electromagnetic property of the neutrino.

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arXiv2005

Displacement Operator Formalism

We review the D-formalism, a new method for determining the renormalization of Green functions to all orders in perturbation theory. This formalism exploits the fact that the renormalized Green functions may be calculated by displacing by an infinite amount the renormalized fields and parameters of the theory with respect to the unrenormalized ones. We briefly discuss some of its main characteristics, its conceptual and practical advantages, and some new results obtained through it.

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arXiv2005

Displacement Operator Formalism for Renormalization and Gauge Dependence to All Orders

We present a new method for determining the renormalization of Green functions to all orders in perturbation theory, which we call the displacement operator formalism, or the D-formalism, in short. This formalism exploits the fact that the renormalized Green functions may be calculated by displacing by an infinite amount the renormalized fields and parameters of the theory with respect to the unrenormalized ones. With the help of this formalism, we are able to obtain the precise form of the deformations induced to the Nielsen identities after renormalization, and thus derive the exact dependence of the renormalized Green functions on the renormalized gauge-fixing parameter to all orders. As a particular non-trivial example, we calculate the gauge-dependence of $\tanβ$ at two loops in the framework of an Abelian Higgs model, using a gauge-fixing scheme that preserves the Higgs-boson low-energy theorem for off-shell Green functions. Various possible applications and future directions are briefly discussed.

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arXiv2003

Pinch technique self-energies and vertices to all orders in perturbation theory

The all-order construction of the pinch technique gluon self-energy and quark-gluon vertex is presented in detail within the class of linear covariant gauges. The main ingredients in our analysis are the identification of a special Green's function, which serves as a common kernel to all self-energy and vertex diagrams, and the judicious use of the Slavnov-Taylor identity it satisfies. In particular, it is shown that the ghost-Green's functions appearing in this identity capture precisely the result of the pinching action at arbitrary order. By virtue of this observation the construction of the quark-gluon vertex becomes particularly compact. It turns out that the aforementioned ghost-Green's functions play a crucial role, their net effect being the non-trivial modification of the ghost diagrams of the quark-gluon vertex in such a way as to reproduce dynamically the characteristic ghost sector of the background field method. The gluon self-energy is also constructed following two different procedures. First, an indirect derivation is given, by resorting to the strong induction method and the assumption of the uniqueness of the S-matrix. Second, an explicit construction based on the intrinsic pinch technique is provided, using the Slavnov-Taylor identity satisfied by the all-order three-gluon vertex nested inside the self-energy diagrams. The process-independence of the gluon self-energy is also demonstrated, by using gluons instead of quark as external test particles, and identifying the corresponding kernel function, together with its Slavnov-Taylor identity. Finally, the general methodology for carrying out the renormalization of the resulting Green's functions is outlined, and various open questions are briefly discussed.

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arXiv2002

Pinch Technique and the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism

In this paper we take the first step towards a non-diagrammatic formulation of the Pinch Technique. In particular we proceed into a systematic identification of the parts of the one-loop and two-loop Feynman diagrams that are exchanged during the pinching process in terms of unphysical ghost Green's functions; the latter appear in the standard Slavnov-Taylor identity satisfied by the tree-level and one-loop three-gluon vertex. This identification allows for the consistent generalization of the intrinsic pinch technique to two loops, through the collective treatment of entire sets of diagrams, instead of the laborious algebraic manipulation of individual graphs, and sets up the stage for the generalization of the method to all orders. We show that the task of comparing the effective Green's functions obtained by the Pinch Technique with those computed in the background field method Feynman gauge is significantly facilitated when employing the powerful quantization framework of Batalin and Vilkovisky. This formalism allows for the derivation of a set of useful non-linear identities, which express the Background Field Method Green's functions in terms of the conventional (quantum) ones and auxiliary Green's functions involving the background source and the gluonic anti-field; these latter Green's functions are subsequently related by means of a Schwinger-Dyson type of equation to the ghost Green's functions appearing in the aforementioned Slavnov-Taylor identity.

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arXiv2002

The Two-Loop Pinch Technique in the Electroweak Sector

The generalization of the two-loop Pinch Technique to the Electroweak Sector of the Standard Model is presented. We restrict ourselves to the case of conserved external currents, and provide a detailed analysis of both the charged and neutral sectors. The crucial ingredient for this construction is the identification of the parts discarded during the pinching procedure with well-defined contributions to the Slavnov-Taylor identity satisfied by the off-shell one-loop gauge-boson vertices; the latter are nested inside the conventional two-loop self-energies. It is shown by resorting to a set of powerful identities that the two-loop effective Pinch Technique self-energies coincide with the corresponding ones computed in the Background Feynman gauge. The aforementioned identities are derived in the context of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism, a fact which enables the individual treatment of the self-energies of the photon and the $Z$-boson. Some possible phenomenological applications are briefly discussed.

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arXiv2002

Gauge-Independent Off-Shell Fermion Self-Energies at Two Loops: The Cases of QED and QCD

We use the pinch technique formalism to construct the gauge-independent off-shell two-loop fermion self-energy, both for Abelian (QED) and non-Abelian (QCD) gauge theories. The new key observation is that all contributions originating from the longitudinal parts of gauge boson propagators, by virtue of the elementary tree-level Ward identities they trigger, give rise to effective vertices, which do not exist in the original Lagrangian; all such vertices cancel diagrammatically inside physical quantities, such as current correlation functions or S-matrix elements. We present two different, but complementary derivations: First, we explicitly track down the aforementioned cancellations inside two-loop diagrams, resorting to nothing more than basic algebraic manipulations. Second, we present an absorptive derivation, exploiting the unitarity of the S-matrix, and the Ward identities imposed on tree-level and one-loop physical amplitudes by gauge invariance, in the case of QED, or by the underlying Becchi-Rouet-Stora symmetry, in the case of QCD. The propagator-like sub-amplitude defined by means of this latter construction corresponds precisely to the imaginary parts of the effective self-energy obtained in the former case; the real part may be obtained from a (twice subtracted) dispersion relation. As in the one-loop case, the final two-loop fermion self-energy constructed using either method coincides with the conventional fermion self-energy computed in the Feynman gauge.

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arXiv2001

Breit-Wigner formalism for non-Abelian theories

The consistent description of resonant transition amplitudes within the framework of perturbative field theories necessitates the definition and resummation of off-shell Green's functions, which must respect several crucial physical requirements. In particular, the generalization of the usual Breit-Wigner formalism in a non-Abelian context constitutes a highly non-trivial problem, related to the fact that the conventionally defined Green's functions are unphysical. We briefly review the main field-theoretical difficulties arising when attempting to use such Green's functions outside the confines of a fixed order perturbative calculation, and explain how this task has been successfully accomplished in the framework of the pinch technique.

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arXiv2001

Chiral fermions and gauge-fixing in five-dimensional theories

We study in detail the issue of gauge-fixing in theories with one universal extra dimension, i.e. theories where both bosons and fermions display Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations. The extra dimension is compactified using the standard orbifold construction for a massless chiral fermion. We carry out the gauge-fixing procedure at the level of the five-dimensional theory and determine the tree-level propagators and interaction vertices needed for performing perturbative calculations with the effective four-dimensional theory resulting after the compactification. The gauge-independence of the tree-level S-matrix involving massive KK modes is verified using specific examples. In order to obtain massive fermionic zero modes one has to enlarge the theory by introducing a set of mirror fermions, a construction which is carried out in detail. Finally, the gauge-independence of the tree-level S-matrix involving the resulting new mass-eigenstates is proved by resorting to generalized current conservation equations.

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arXiv2000

Extra dimensions at the one loop level: Z -> b,b(bar) and B-B(bar) mixing

We study, at the one loop level, the dominant new physics contributions from extra dimensions to Z -> b,b(bar), as well as B-B(bar) and K-K(bar) mixing. We use a model with one extra dimension containing fermions which live in four dimensions, and gauge bosons and one scalar doublet propagating in five dimensions. We find that the effect of the infinite tower of Kaluza-Klein modes in Z-> b,b(bar) is finite and gives a negative correction to R_b=Gamma_b/Gamma_h, which is used to set a lower bound of 1 TeV on the compactification scale M_c. On the other hand, we show that the box diagrams contributing to B-B(bar) and K-K(bar) mixing are divergent and, after proper regularization, we find that they increase the value of the function S(x_t) which governs this mixing. The obtained value is perfectly compatible with available data.

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arXiv2000

A method for determining anomalous gauge boson couplings from e^{+}e^{-} experiments

We present a model-independent method for determining anomalous gauge boson couplings from ongoing and future e^{+}e^{-} -> W^{+} W^{-} experiments. First we generalize an already existing method, which relies on the study of four observables constructed through appropriate projections of the unpolarized differential cross-section. In particular, we retain both linear and quadratic terms in the unknown couplings, and compute contributions to these observables originating from anomalous couplings which do not separately conserve the discrete C, P, and T symmetries. Second, we combine the above set of observables with three additional ones, which can be experimentally obtained from the total cross-sections for polarized final state W bosons. The resulting set of seven observables may provide useful information for constraining, and in some cases for fully determining, various of the possible anomalous gauge boson couplings.

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arXiv1999

The pinch technique at two-loops: The case of mass-less Yang-Mills theories

The generalization of the pinch technique beyond one loop is presented. It is shown that the crucial physical principles of gauge-invariance, unitarity, and gauge-fixing-parameter independence single out at two loops exactly the same algorithm which has been used to define the pinch technique at one loop, without any additional assumptions. The two-loop construction of the pinch technique gluon self-energy, and quark-gluon vertex are carried out in detail for the case of mass-less Yang-Mills theories, such as perturbative QCD. We present two different but complementary derivations. First we carry out the construction by directly rearranging two-loop diagrams. The analysis reveals that, quite interestingly, the well-known one-loop correspondence between the pinch technique and the background field method in the Feynman gauge persists also at two-loops. The renormalization is discussed in detail, and is shown to respect the aforementioned correspondence. Second, we present an absorptive derivation, exploiting the unitarity of the $S$-matrix and the underlying BRS symmetry; at this stage we deal only with tree-level and one-loop physical amplitudes. The gauge-invariant sub-amplitudes defined by means of this absorptive construction correspond precisely to the imaginary parts of the $n$-point functions defined in the full two-loop derivation, thus furnishing a highly non-trivial self-consistency check for the entire method. Various future applications are briefly discussed.

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arXiv1999

The Pinch Technique at Two Loops

It is shown that the fundamental properties of gauge-independence, gauge-invariance, unitarity, and analyticity of the $S$-matrix lead to the unambiguous generalization of the pinch technique algorithm to two loops.

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arXiv1999

The Pinch Technique Approach to the Physics of Unstable Particles

The consistent description of unstable particles within the framework of perturbative gauge field theories necessitates the definition and resummation of off-shell Green's functions, which must respect several crucial physical requirements. We present the solution to this problem at one-loop, using the pinch technique.

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arXiv1999

Asymptotic properties of Born-improved amplitudes with gauge bosons in the final state

For processes with gauge bosons in the final state we show how to continuously connect with a single Born-improved amplitude the resonant region, where resummation effects are important, with the asymptotic region far away from the resonance, where the amplitude must reduce to its tree-level form. While doing so all known field-theoretical constraints are respected, most notably gauge-invariance, unitarity and the equivalence theorem. The calculations presented are based on the process $f\bar{f}\to ZZ$, mediated by a possibly resonant Higgs boson; this process captures all the essential features, and can serve as a prototype for a variety of similar calculations. By virtue of massive cancellations the resulting closed expressions for the differential and total cross-sections are particularly compact.

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arXiv1998

A set of sum rules for anomalous gauge boson couplings

The dependence of the differential cross-section for on-shell W-pair production on the anomalous trilinear gauge couplings invariant under C and P is examined. It is shown that the contributions of the anomalous magnetic moments of the W boson due to the photon and the Z can be individually projected out by means of two appropriately constructed polynomials. The remaining four anomalous couplings are shown to satisfy a set of model-independent sum rules. Specific models which predict special relations among the anomalous couplings are then studied; in particular, the composite model of Brodsky and Hiller, and the linear and non-linear effective Lagrangian approaches. The relations predicted by these models, when combined with the aforementioned sum rules, give rise to definite predictions, particular to each model. These predictions can be used, at least in principle, in order to exclude or constrain such models.

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