Hot answers tagged topological-field-theory
12
The absence of physical excitations in 3 dimensions has a simple reason: the Riemann tensor may be fully expressed via the Ricci tensor. Because the Ricci tensor vanishes in the vacuum due to Einstein's equations, the Riemann tensor vanishes (whenever the equations of motion are imposed), too: the vacuum has to be flat (no nontrivial Schwarzschild-like ...
10
In a "fully defined" TQFT the spaces of states are necessarily finite dimensional. This follows simply from the fact that the correlators assigned to the cap and the cup cobordism (the "2-point functions") equip the space of states with the structure of a dualizable object in the corresponding monoidal category of vector spaces, which are precisely the ...
8
First, the full paper is here:
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=807BE383780883ACB4CAB8BD48E8C90B?doi=10.1.1.128.1806&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Second, the paper has 150 citations. See all this information at INSPIRE (updated SPIRES):
http://inspirebeta.net/record/278923?ln=en
Third, the text between 3.4 and 3.5 looks ...
8
The Kapustin-Witten paper
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0604151
says (on page 17) that two of the three twists are related to Donaldson theory:
Two of the twisted theories, including one that was investigated in detail in [45: Vafa Witten], are closely analogous to Donaldson theory in the sense that they lead to instanton invariants which, like the ...
8
We have thought a bit about the last paragraph of the above question and have some arguments as to what the answer should be. Since there have been no replies here so far, maybe I am allowed to hereby suggest an answer myself.
Recall, the last part of the above question was: is there a nonabelian 7-dimensional Chern-Simons theory holographically related to ...
7
It's not the making as opposed to verifying of topological superconductors that is difficult experimentally. One of the most useful techniques in identifying topological properties of a material is Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES). ARPES can independently image the bulk and surface modes of a 3-D solid with very good energy and momentum ...
6
(sorry I don't have enough reputation to make a comment): This question is very broad/vague, as indeed algebraic/differential topology (symplectic geometry of course) is completely used in theoretical physics, in particular for Topological QFTs. From a physicist's perspective, start with Nakahara's Geometry, Topology, and Physics. Surgery, cobordism, and ...
6
There are several inequivalent definitions, used in different contexts, which is the reason for your confusion.
The word "Chiral" originally refered to chirality, or handedness of spin along the direction of motion. This is still the most often used definition. The spinor representations of the Lorentz group in even dimensions have components with a ...
6
There is nothing "wrong" with the Einstein field equations in $2+1$ as indicated by the comments, but they do have interesting, significantly restricted behavior in $2+1$ dimensions.
For example, the Wikipedia page referred to by Olof in the comments says that in $2+1$, every vacuum solution is locally either $\mathbb R^{2,1}$, $\mathrm{AdS_3}$, or ...
5
In the present case I think that it is more convenient to perform the propagator computation covariantly (and not in components).
The inverse propagator (in the momentum space) can be read from the Abelian Chern Simons action including the gauge fixing term as:
$ G^{-1}_{\mu\nu}(k) = \alpha q_{\mu} q_{\nu} + i \frac{\theta}{4} ...
5
One should notice that extended CFT hasn't been fully formalized yet. ("TCFT" is only superficially conformal, in fact it axiomatizes topological strings. Also the Moore-Segal discussion is about 2d TFT, as far as I am aware.)
While not fully formalized yet, there are a few results that already come very close. For rational 2d CFT the FRS formalims and its ...
5
Dijkgraaf and Witten used $\mathcal H^3[G,U(1)]$ to define CS theory for gauge group $G$. Recently, group cohomology has found applications in condensed matter physics. It may classify the so called "symmetry protected topological phases"
of interacting bosons:
The $d$-dimensional symmetry protected topological phases of interacting bosons with symmetry ...
5
The relation is very deep and has a rich mathematical structure, so (unfortunately) most stuff will be written in a more formal, mathematical way. I can't say anything about Donaldson theory or Floer homology, but I'll mention some resources for Chern-Simons theory and its relation to the Jones Polynomial.
There is first of all the original article by ...
5
Your term in the Lagrangian density is usually not given a special name; it is called the "F wedge F" term from the $p$-form notation $F\wedge F$ (the symbol is written as $\backslash{\rm wedge}$) and represents a tensor multiplication of antisymmetric tensor followed by a new antisymmetrization of all the indices (up to some normalization that depends on ...
5
There are a few papers in which topological field theories are constructed in terms of nets of algebras. The idea generally is that a net of algebras gives you a model for the higher category associated to a point by an extended TQFT. (Physicists would say that a 2d conformal net describes a 2d CFT which is related to a 3d TQFT.)
The first one that comes ...
5
Witten clearly writes the justification just on the line above the equation (3.2): the integral is independent because the integration measure is invariant under supersymmetry – the symmetry generated by $Q$.
Just to be sure, $Q$ is the infinitesimal generator which is why $\exp(\varepsilon Q)$ is a finite transformation generated by this generator: ...
4
Topological order is a new kind of order in zero-temperature phase of quantum spins, bonsons, and/or electrons. The new order corresponds to pattern of long-range quantum entanglement. Topological order is beyond the Landau symmetry-breaking description. It cannot be described by local order parameters and long range correlations. However, topological orders ...
4
Another interesting application is that Chern-Simons Theory in 3d is equivalent to General Relativity in 3 space-time dimensions. GR in 3 dimensions is quantisable and following a nice playground for quantum gravity.
http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Chern-Simons+gravity has a nice reading list about that topic at the References.
Maybe a good start is "Edward ...
4
The topological spin $h$ of an anyon (a quasi-hole in a FQH state) is the exponent in the Green function of the quasi-hole along the edge of the FQH state
[see eq.(61) in my review paper http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3268 ], which can be measured by the I-V curve: $I\propto V^{4h-1}$ in the tunnelling experiments between FQH edges.
4
This is explained in Section 3 of Witten's "Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial." The idea is to locally parametrize a three-manifold by $M\times \mathbf{R}$, where $M$ is some two-dimensional manifold and $\mathbf{R}$ is the time direction that we are quantizing along. Once we do this, we can fix temporal gauge, where the time component $A_0$ of ...
4
This is really one of the numerous standard identities or "tricks" one may exploit in two-dimensional conformal field theories, a part of the "bosonization" techniques.
I am not aware of generalizations to higher dimensions and I don't really believe they exist because it is only $d=2$ in which fields have the same minimum number of components (one), ...
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