Von Neumann algebras in field theory
Name
1133645685-MIT.pdf
Size
7.43 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e34e29e9894705491a1133a57dd870ce
Author(s)
Rajagopal, Srivatsan,Ph. D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Advisor(s)
Hong Liu.
Date Issued
2019
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
In this thesis, I show that modular flows of generic excited states in a quantum field theory can be studied by restricting attention to a special class of states whose associated modular flow can be characterised easily; this follows from a certain theorem involving the invertible group of operators in a general von Neumann algebra, namely that such operators are a dense subset of the algebra in the strong operator topology. I also develop tools to compute these flows using a novel perturbation expansion : the structure of the terms appearing in the expansion is made manifest to all orders in the expansion. Finally, I write down an effective action for a general charged fluid which has an anomalously broken symmetry; the novelty here is that this effective action is local (previous treatments gave a non-local effective action for such a fluid). This construction also gives a simple explanation for various puzzling coincidences which have been reported in the literature before.
Description
Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-171).
Subjects
Physics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
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