In this thesis, we set up a framework to define knot invariants for each choice of a symmetric space. In order to address this task, we start by defining appropriate notions of singular bundles and singular connections for a given symmetric space. We can associate a moduli space to any singular bundle defined over a compact 4-manifold with possibly non-empty boundary. We study these moduli spaces and show that they enjoy nice properties. For example, in the case of the symmetric space SU(n)/SO(n) the moduli space can be perturbed to an orientable manifold. Although this manifold is not necessarily compact, we introduce a comapctification of it. We then use this moduli space for singular bundles defined over 4-manifolds of the form YxR to define knot invariants. In another direction we mimic the construction of Donaldson invariants to define polynomial invariants for closed 4-manifolds equipped with smooth action of Z/2Z. / Mathematics

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Orientador: Marcos Benevenuto Jardim / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-23T02:27:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Barbosa_RodrigodeMenezes_M.pdf: 1767185 bytes, checksum: abee129d89bf1e5149600bcac1bb76be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: Neste trabalho estudamos teorias de calibre em variedades de dimensão alta, com ênfase em variedades Calabi-Yau, G2 e Spin(7). Começamos desenvolvendo a teoria de conexões em fibrados e seus grupos de holonomia, culminando com o teorema de Berger que classifica as possíveis holonomias de variedades Riemannianas e o teorema de Wang relacionando a holonomia à existência de espinores paralelos. A seguir, descrevemos em mais detalhes as estruturas geométricas resultantes da redução da holonomia, incluindo aspectos topológicos (homologia e grupo fundamental) e geométricos (curvatura). No último capítulo desenvolvemos o formalismo de teoria de calibre em dimensão quatro: introduzimos o espaço de moduli de instantons e realizamos as reduções dimensionais das equações de anti-autodualidade. Com esta motivação procedemos a estudar teorias de calibre em variedades de holonomia especial e também algumas de suas reduções dimensionais / Abstract: In this work we study gauge theory on high dimensional manifolds with emphasis on Calabi-Yau, G2 and Spin(7) manifolds. We start by developing the theory of connections on fiber bundles and their associated holonomy groups, culminating with Berger's theorem classifying the holonomies of RIemannian manifolds and Wang's theorem relating the holonomy groups to the existence of parallel spinors. We proceed to describe in more detail the geometric structures resulting from holonomy reduction, including topological (homology and fundamental group) and geometric (curvature) aspects. In the last chapter we develop the formalism of gauge theory in dimension four: we introduce the moduli space of instantons and the dimensional reductions of the anti-selfduality equations. With this motivation in mind, we proceed to study gauge theories on manifolds of special holonomy and also some of their dimensional reductions / Mestrado / Matematica / Mestre em Matemática

We investigate several problems in relativity and particle physics where symmetries play a central role; in all cases geometric properties of Lie groups and their quotients are related to physical effects. The first part is concerned with symmetries in gravity. We apply the theory of Lie group deformations to isometry groups of exact solutions in general relativity, relating the algebraic properties of these groups to physical properties of the spacetimes. We then make group deformation local, generalising deformed special relativity (DSR) by describing gravity as a gauge theory of the de Sitter group. We find that in our construction Minkowski space has a connection with torsion; physical effects of torsion seem to rule out the proposed framework as a viable theory. A third chapter discusses a formulation of gravity as a topological BF theory with added linear constraints that reduce the symmetries of the topological theory to those of general relativity. We discretise our constructions and compare to a similar construction by Plebanski which uses quadratic constraints. In the second part we study CP violation in the electroweak sector of the standard model and certain extensions of it. We quantify fine-tuning in the observed magnitude of CP violation by determining a natural measure on the space of CKM matrices, a double quotient of SU(3), introducing different possible choices and comparing their predictions for CP violation. While one generically faces a fine-tuning problem, in the standard model the problem is removed by a measure that incorporates the observed quark masses, which suggests a close relation between a mass hierarchy and suppression of CP violation. Going beyond the standard model by adding a left-right symmetry spoils the result, leaving us to conclude that such additional symmetries appear less natural.

The discovery of a light scalar at the Large Hadron Collider is in basic agreement with the predictions of an elementary Higgs in the Standard Model (SM). Nonetheless, a light, fundamental scalar is difficult to accommodate in the SM because quantum corrections suggest its mass should be much higher than the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB). A natural possibility is to replace the Higgs by a strongly coupled composite. Composite dynamics also gives a natural explanation to the origin of EWSB. Phenomenologically viable composite models of EWSB are constrained by experiment to feature approximate scale invariance. This behavior may follow from near conformal dynamics. At present, lattice gauge theory (LGT) provides the only quantitative method to study near conformal composite Higgs dynamics in a fully consistent strongly coupled relativistic quantum field theory. As a novel approach to the question of finding and studying near conformal theories, I will apply LGT to the study of a generalization of Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) with four chiral fermion flavors plus eight flavors of finite, tunable mass. By continuously varying the mass of the eight heavy flavors, I can tune between the four flavor chirally broken theory, which exhibits features similar to QCD, and the twelve flavor theory, which is known to have a conformal fixed point. This is the "4+8 Model" for directly studying near-conformal behavior. In this dissertation, I will review modern composite phenomenology, followed by outlining a study of the 4+8 Model over a range of heavy flavor masses. As a check of near-conformal behavior, I will measure the scale dependent coupling with the method of the Wilson Flow. After verifying the existence of controllable, approximate scale invariance, I will measure the low energy particle spectrum of the 4+8 Model. This includes a Higgs-like light composite scalar. Throughout this dissertation I will make reference to LGT measurement code I wrote and contributed to the software package FUEL.

In 1920, Rudolf Bach proposed an action based on the square of the Weyl tensor or CabcdCabcd where the Weyl tensor is an invariant under a scaling of the metric. A variation of the metric leads to the field equation known as the Bach equation. In this dissertation, the same action is analyzed, but as a conformal gauge theory. It is shown that this action is a result of a particular gauging of this group. By treating it as a gauge theory, it is natural to vary all of the gauge fields independently, rather than performing the usual fourth-order metric variation only. We show that solutions of the resulting vacuum field equations are all solutions to the vacuum Einstein equation, up to a conformal factor—a result consistent with local scale freedom. We also show how solutions for the gauge fields imply there is no gravitational self energy.

A non-supersymmetric Yi-deformed AdS/CFT correspondence has recently been conjectured by Frolov. A detailed description of both sides of this proposed gauge/string duality is presented. The analogy that exists between single trace gauge theory operators in the SU(3) sector and i-deformed SU(3) integrable spin chains is also discussed. Frolov, Roiban and Tseytlin’s leading order comparison between the ideformed spin chain coherent state action and i-deformed string worldsheet action in the semiclassical limit is reviewed. A particular Lax pair representation for the first order semiclassical i-deformed spin chain/string action is then constructed.

<p>Let $p>5$ be a prime and $X_0$ a simply-connected $4$-manifold with boundary the Poincar\'e homology sphere $\Sigma(2,3,5)$ and even negative-definite intersection form $Q_=\text_8$ . We obtain restrictions on extending a free $\bZ/p$-action on $\Sigma(2,3,5)$ to a smooth, homologically-trivial action on $X_0$ with isolated fixed points. It is shown that for $p=7$ there is no such smooth extension. As a corollary, we obtain that there does not exist a smooth, homologically-trivial $\bZ/7$-equivariant splitting of $\#^8 S^2 \times S^2=E_8 \cup_ \overline$ with isolated fixed points. The approach is to study the equivariant version of Donaldson-Floer instanton-one moduli spaces for $4$-manifolds with cylindrical ends. These are $L^2$-finite anti-self dual connections which asymptotically limit to the trivial product connection.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Fases topológicas da matéria são caracterizadas por terem uma degenerescên- cia do estado fundamental que depende da topologia da variedade em que o sistema físico é definido, além disso apresentam estados excitados no interior do sistema que são interpretados como sendo quase-partículas com estatística de tipo anyonica. Estes sistemas apresentam também excitações sem gap de energia em sua borda. Fases topologicamente ordenadas distintas não podem ser distinguidas pelo esquema usual de quebra de simetria de Ginzburg-Landau. Nesta dissertação apresentamos como exemplo o modelo mais simples de um sistema com Ordem Topológica, a saber, o Toric Code (TC), introduzido originalmente por A. Kitaev em [1]. O estado fundamental deste modelo ap- resenta degenerescência igual a 4 quando incorporado à superfície de um toro. As excitações elementares são interpretadas como sendo quase-partículas com estatística do tipo anyonica. O TC é um caso especial de uma classe mais geral de models chamados de Quantum Double Models (QDMs), estes modelos podem ser entendidos como sendo uma implementação de Teorias de gauge na rede em (2 + 1) dimensões na formulação Hamiltoniana, em que os graus de liberdade vivem nas arestas da rede e são elementos do grupo de gauge G. Nós generalizamos estes modelos com a inclusão de campos de matéria nos vértices da rede. Também apresentamos uma construção detalhada de tais modelos e mostramos que eles são exatamente solúveis. Em particular, exploramos o modelo que corresponde à escolher o grupo de gauge como sendo o grupo cíclico Z2 e os graus de liberdade de matéria como sendo elementos de um espaço vetorial bidimensional V2. Além disso, mostramos que a degenerescência do estado fundamental não depende da topologia da variedade e obtemos os estados excitados mais elementares deste modelo. / Topological phases of matter are characterized for having a topologically dependent ground state degeneracy, anyonic quasi-particle bulk excitations and gapless edge excitations. Different topologically ordered phases of matter can not be distinguished by te usual Ginzburg-Landau scheme of symmetry breaking. Therefore, a new mathematical framework for the study of such phases is needed. In this dissertation we present the simplest example of a topologically ordered system, namely, the \\Toric Code (TC) introduced by A. Kitaev in [1]. Its ground state is 4-fold degenerate when embedded on the surface of a torus and its elementary excited states are interpreted as quasi-particle anyons. The TC is a particular case of a more general class of lattice models known as Quantum Double Models (QDMs) which can be interpreted as an implementation of (2+1) Lattice Gauge Theories in the Hamiltonian formulation with discrete gauge group G. We generalize these models by the inclusion of matter fields at the vertices of the lattice. We give a detailed construction of such models, we show they are exactly solvable and explore the case when the gauge group is set to be the abelian Z_2 cyclic group and the matter degrees of freedom to be elements of a 2-dimensional vector space V_2. Furthermore, we show that the ground state degeneracy is not topologically dependent and obtain the most elementary excited states.

Fases topológicas da matéria são caracterizadas por terem uma degenerescên- cia do estado fundamental que depende da topologia da variedade em que o sistema físico é definido, além disso apresentam estados excitados no interior do sistema que são interpretados como sendo quase-partículas com estatística de tipo anyonica. Estes sistemas apresentam também excitações sem gap de energia em sua borda. Fases topologicamente ordenadas distintas não podem ser distinguidas pelo esquema usual de quebra de simetria de Ginzburg-Landau. Nesta dissertação apresentamos como exemplo o modelo mais simples de um sistema com Ordem Topológica, a saber, o Toric Code (TC), introduzido originalmente por A. Kitaev em [1]. O estado fundamental deste modelo ap- resenta degenerescência igual a 4 quando incorporado à superfície de um toro. As excitações elementares são interpretadas como sendo quase-partículas com estatística do tipo anyonica. O TC é um caso especial de uma classe mais geral de models chamados de Quantum Double Models (QDMs), estes modelos podem ser entendidos como sendo uma implementação de Teorias de gauge na rede em (2 + 1) dimensões na formulação Hamiltoniana, em que os graus de liberdade vivem nas arestas da rede e são elementos do grupo de gauge G. Nós generalizamos estes modelos com a inclusão de campos de matéria nos vértices da rede. Também apresentamos uma construção detalhada de tais modelos e mostramos que eles são exatamente solúveis. Em particular, exploramos o modelo que corresponde à escolher o grupo de gauge como sendo o grupo cíclico Z2 e os graus de liberdade de matéria como sendo elementos de um espaço vetorial bidimensional V2. Além disso, mostramos que a degenerescência do estado fundamental não depende da topologia da variedade e obtemos os estados excitados mais elementares deste modelo. / Topological phases of matter are characterized for having a topologically dependent ground state degeneracy, anyonic quasi-particle bulk excitations and gapless edge excitations. Different topologically ordered phases of matter can not be distinguished by te usual Ginzburg-Landau scheme of symmetry breaking. Therefore, a new mathematical framework for the study of such phases is needed. In this dissertation we present the simplest example of a topologically ordered system, namely, the \\Toric Code (TC) introduced by A. Kitaev in [1]. Its ground state is 4-fold degenerate when embedded on the surface of a torus and its elementary excited states are interpreted as quasi-particle anyons. The TC is a particular case of a more general class of lattice models known as Quantum Double Models (QDMs) which can be interpreted as an implementation of (2+1) Lattice Gauge Theories in the Hamiltonian formulation with discrete gauge group G. We generalize these models by the inclusion of matter fields at the vertices of the lattice. We give a detailed construction of such models, we show they are exactly solvable and explore the case when the gauge group is set to be the abelian Z_2 cyclic group and the matter degrees of freedom to be elements of a 2-dimensional vector space V_2. Furthermore, we show that the ground state degeneracy is not topologically dependent and obtain the most elementary excited states.