Tuesday, September 9, 2014

quantum field theory - Gauge symmetries and elementary particles


The Weinberg-Witten theorem (disclaimer: I don't know this wikipedia entry) is usually mentioned as the reason why gravitons may not be composite particles. I do understand the proof of the theorem, but not the previous conclusion.


The theorem states that in an interacting and Poincare invariant quantum field theory, there are not massless, spin-2 particles unless there exists a gauge symmetry — which makes the energy-momentum tensor non-covariant (actually covariant up to a gauge transformation) under Lorentz transformations in the Fock space. So the immediate conclusion of the theorem is that the existence of a massless, spin-2 particle (like a graviton) requires linearized diffeomorphisms.


My question is: why do linearized diffeomorphisms imply that gravitons are elementary particles? Or, more in general, why the particle corresponding to a gauge field must be elementary (I know that a gauge symmetry must be exact, but why this implies that the corresponding particle must be elementary?).



Answer



I have followed this reference


The Weinberg-Witten theorem states that a theory containing a Poincaré covariant conserved tensor Tμν forbids massless particles of spin j>1 for which Pν=T0νdx is the conserved energy-momentum four-vector.



Consider a composite graviton made of 2 particles of spin 1.


Each of the spin-1 particles will be possibly have a non-vanishing charge current, in this case the Poincaré covariant conserved tensor Tμν (this is authorized for a spin-1 particle)


But this means that the composite graviton, being the "sum" of these 2 spin-1 particles, will have also a non-vanishing Poincaré covariant conserved tensor Tμν


But this is forbidden by the Weinberg-Witten theorem, because the spin of the graviton is 2.


So the graviton cannot be a composite particle.


In the full General Relativity, the covariant stress-energy tensor Tμν is not conserved, and the conserved stress-energy quantity (Tμν+τμν), is not a full covariant tensor.


If we linearized the Einstein equation, so as to have a conserved stress-energy tensor, we have:


(Gμν)linearized=χ[(Tμν+τμν)]


The gauge symmetries, for the linear graviton as :


hμνhμν+μϕν+νϕμ



and could be interpreted as "linear diffeomorphisms".


But in fact, the τμν term is not invariant, by the gauge symmetry, so the full conserved stress-energy quantity (Tμν+τμν) is not gauge-invariant, and so we escape from the Weinberg-Witten theorem.


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