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Bibliography: leaves 124-127.

Bibliography: leaves 124-127. / ix, 127 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Physics and Mathematical Physics, 2002

Bibliography: p. 222-229. / vii, 229 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Constructs an overlap operator to realise chiral symmetry on a quantum chromodynamic lattice that is faster to evaluate computationally than the Dirac operator, though the use of an alternative kernel, the Fat Link Irrelevant Clover (FLIC) action. Investigates the properties of FLIC Overlap fermions through the quark propagator in momentum space via topology. These calculations are performed in both the quenched and the dynamical kernel approximation, a type of partial quenching. In the quenched approximation, the effects of fermion vacuum fluctuations are neglected in the creation of gluon field configurations, In the partially quenched approximation, a different fermionic action is used in the sea and valence sectors. Develops a means of including the effects of FLIC sea fermions in the gluonic background field and presents an implementation of code optimised for cluster computing. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Chemistry and Physics, Discipline of Physics, 2004

We investigate the dynamical generation of fermion mass in quantum electrodynamics (QED). This non-perturbative study is performed using a truncated set of Schwinger-Dyson equations for the fermion and the photon propagator. First, we study dynamical fermion mass generation in quenched QED with the Curtis-Pennington vertex, which satisfies the Ward-Takahashi identity and moreover ensures the multiplicative renormalizability of the fermion propagator. We apply bifurcation analysis to determine the critical point for a general covariant gauge. In the second part of this work we investigate the dynamical generation of fermion mass in full, unquenched QED. We develop a numerical method to solve the system of three coupled non-linear equations for the dynamical fermion mass, the fermion wavefunction renormalization and the photon renormalization function. Much care is taken to ensure the high accuracy of the solutions. Moreover, we discuss in detail the proper numerical cancellation of the quadratic divergence in the vacuum polarization integral and the requirement of using smooth approximations to the solutions. To achieve this, we improve the numerical method by introducing the Chebyshev expansion method. We apply this method to the bare vertex approximation to unquenched QED to determine the critical coupling for a variety of approximations. This culminates in the detailed, highly accurate, solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equations for dynamical fermion mass generation in QED including both, the photon renormalization function and the fermion wavefunction renormalization in a consistent way, in the bare vertex approximation and, for the first time, using improved vertices. We introduce new improvements to the numerical method, to achieve the accuracy necessary to avoid unphysical quadratic divergences in the vacuum polarization with the Ball-Chiu vertex.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Physics and Mathematical Physics, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 124-127.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Chemistry and Physics, Discipline of Physics, 2004. / Bibliography: p. 222-229.

The objective of this Thesis is to explore Poincaré Gauge theories of gravity and expose some contributions to this field, which are detailed below. Moreover, a novel ultraviolet non-local extension of this theory shall be provided, and it will be shown that it can be ghost- and singularity-free at the linear level. First, we introduce some fundamentals of differential geometry, base of any gravitational theory. We then establish that the affine structure and the metric of the spacetime are not generally related, and that there is no physical reason to impose a certain affine connection to the gravitational theory. We review the importance of gauge symmetries in Physics and construct the quadratic Lagrangian of Poincaré Gauge gravity by requiring that the gravitational theorymust be invariant under local Poincaré transformations. We study the stability of the quadratic Poincaré Gauge Lagrangian, and prove that only the two scalar degrees of freedom (one scalar and one pseudo-scalar) can propagate without introducing pathologies. We provide extensive details on the scalar, pseudo-scalar, and bi-scalar theories. Moreover, we suggest how to extend the quadratic Poincaré Gauge Lagrangian so that more modes can propagate safely. We then proceed to explore some interesting phenomenology of Poincaré Gauge theories. Herein, we calculate how fermionic particles move in spacetimes endowed with a nonsymmetric connection at first order in the WKB approximation. Afterwards, we use this result in a particular black-hole solution of Poincaré Gauge gravity, showing that measurable differences between the trajectories of a fermion and a boson can be observed. Motivated by this fact, we studied the singularity theorems in theories with torsion, to see if this non-geodesical behaviour can lead to the avoidance of singularities. Nevertheless, we prove that this is not possible provided that the conditions for the appearance of black holes of any co-dimension are met. In order to see which kind Black Hole solutions we can expect in Poincaré Gauge theories, we study Birkhoff and no-hair theorems under physically relevant conditions. Finally, we propose an ultraviolet extension of Poincaré Gauge theories by introducing non-local (infinite derivatives) terms into the action, which can ameliorate the singular behaviour at large energies. We find solutions of this theory at the linear level, and prove that such solutions are ghost- and singularity-free. We also find new features that are not present in metric Infinite Derivative Gravity.

Quiver gauge theories are widely studied in the context of AdS/CFT, which establishes a correspondence between CFTs and string theories. CFTs in turn offer a map between quantum states and Gauge Invariant Operators (GIOs). This thesis presents results on the counting and correlators of holomorphic GIOs in quiver gauge theories with flavour symmetries, in the zero coupling limit. We first give a prescription to build a basis of holomorphic matrix invariants, labelled by representation theory data. A fi nite N counting function of these GIOs is then given in terms of Littlewood-Richardson coefficients. In the large N limit, the generating function simpli fies to an in finite product of determinants, which depend only on the weighted adjacency matrix associated with the quiver. The building block of this product has a counting interpretation by itself, expressed in terms of words formed by partially commuting letters associated with closed loops in the quiver. This is a new relation between counting problems in gauge theory and the Cartier-Foata monoid. We compute the free fi eld two and three point functions of the matrix invariants. These have a non-trivial dependence on the structure of the operators and on the ranks of the gauge and flavour symmetries: our results are exact in the ranks, and their expansions contain information beyond the planar limit. We introduce a class of permutation centraliser algebras, which give a precise characterisation of the minimal set of charges needed to distinguish arbitrary matrix invariants. For the two-matrix model, the relevant non-commutative algebra is parametrised by two integers. Its Wedderburn-Artin decomposition explains the counting of restricted Schur operators. The structure of the algebra, notably its dimension, its centre and its maximally commuting sub-algebra, is related to Littlewood-Richardson numbers for composing Young diagrams.

Bibliography: p. 377-382.