Manoel M. Ferreira, Jr.

arXiv2020

Unitarity in Maxwell-Carroll-Field-Jackiw electrodynamics

In this work we focus on the Carroll-Field-Jackiw (CFJ) modified electrodynamics in combination with a CPT-even Lorentz-violating contribution. We add a photon mass term to the Lagrange density and study the question whether this contribution can render the theory unitary. The analysis is based on the pole structure of the modified photon propagator as well as the validity of the optical theorem. We find, indeed, that the massive CFJ-type modification is unitary at tree-level. This result provides a further example for how a photon mass can mitigate malign behaviors.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Maxwell electrodynamics modified by CPT-even and Lorentz-violating dimension-6 higher-derivative terms

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 evaluate the propagator and obtain the dispersion relations of the theory. By doing so, we analyze some configurations of the fixed background and search for sectors where the energy is well-defined and causality is assured. A brief analysis of unitarity is included for particular configurations. Afterwards, we perform the same kind of analysis for a more general dimension-6 model. We conclude that the modes of both Lagrange densities are possibly plagued by physical problems, including causality and unitarity violation, and that signal propagation may become physically meaningful only in the high-momentum regime.

hep-th↗