The application of star-products to noncommutative geometry and gauge theory

Sykora, Andreas (2004): The application of star-products to noncommutative geometry and gauge theory. Dissertation, LMU München: Fakultät für Physik

Abstract

Due to the singularities arising in quantum field theory and the difficulties in quantizing gravity it is often believed that the description of spacetime by a smooth manifold should be given up at small length scales or high energies. In this work we will replace spacetime by noncommutative structures arising within the framework of deformation quantization. The ordinary product between functions will be replaced by a *-product, an associative product for the space of functions on a manifold. We develop a formalism to realize algebras defined by relations on function spaces. For this porpose we construct the Weyl-ordered *-product and present a method how to calculate *-products with the help of commuting vector fields. Concepts developed in noncommutative differential geometry will be applied to this type of algebras and we construct actions for noncommutative field theories. In the classical limit these noncommutative theories become field theories on manifolds with nonvanishing curvature. It becomes clear that the application of *-products is very fruitful to the solution of noncommutative problems. In the semiclassical limit every *-product is related to a Poisson structure, every derivation of the algebra to a vector field on the manifold. Since in this limit many problems are reduced to a couple of differential equations the *-product representation makes it possible to construct noncommutative spaces corresponding to interesting Riemannian manifolds. Derivations of *-products makes it further possible to extend noncommutative gauge theory in the Seiberg-Witten formalism with covariant derivatives. The resulting noncommutative gauge fields may be interpreted as one forms of a generalization of the exterior algebra of a manifold. For the Formality *-product we prove the existence of the abelian Seiberg-Witten map for derivations of these *-products. We calculate the enveloping algebra valued non abelian Seiberg-Witten map pertubatively up to second order for the Weyl-ordered *-product. A general method to construct actions invariant under noncommutative gauge transformations is developed. In the commutative limit these theories are becoming gauge theories on curved backgrounds. We study observables of noncommutative gauge theories and extend the concept of so called open Wilson lines to general noncommutative gauge theories. With help of this construction we give a formula for the inverse abelian Seiberg-Witten map on noncommutative spaces with nondegenerate *-products.

• Dokumententyp: Dissertationen (Dissertation, LMU München)
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik ; 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik
• Fakultäten: Fakultät für Physik
• Sprache der Hochschulschrift: Englisch
• Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 2. Dezember 2004
• 1. Bericht­erstatter:in: Wess, Julius