Particle Physics Seminar: Lifshitz Field Theories, Supersymmetry and Anomalies

Abstract:

Lifshitz scaling is an anisotropic scaling where time and space scale differently. Quantum field theories that exhibit Lifshitz scale symmetry provide a framework for studying low energy systems with an emergent dynamic scaling such as quantum critical points. Introducing supersymmetry to the Lifshitz algebra leads to a rich structure that is less constrained compared to that of relativistic supersymmetry. We construct supersymmetric Lifshitz quantum field theories and study their renormalization properties and RG flows. We show that models of Lifshitz supersymmetry that possess a holomorphic structure realize lines of quantum exact Lifshitz fixed points for various choices of spacetime dimensions and marginal supersymmetric interactions. We also discuss anisotropic scale anomalies and present a general framework for calculating Lifshitz scale anomaly coefficients from correlation functions of stress-tensor operators using a split dimensional regularization scheme. The presented results are based on four papers.

Seminar Organizers: Prof. Erez Etzion & Dr. Liron Barak