fields

Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Predictions (Part 7)

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Appropriate for Advanced Non-Experts

[This is the seventh post in a series that begins here.]

In the last post in this series, I pointed out that there’s a lot about quantum field theory [the general case] that we don’t understand.  In particular there are many specific quantum field theories whose behavior we cannot calculate, and others whose existence we’re only partly sure of, since we can’t even write down equations for them. And I concluded with the remark that part of the reason we know about this last case is due to “supersymmetry”.

What’s the role of supersymmetry here? Most of the time you read about supersymmetry in the press, and on this website, it’s about the possible role of supersymmetry in addressing the naturalness problem of the Standard Model [which overlaps with and is almost identical to the hierarchy problem.] But actually (and I speak from personal experience here) one of the most powerful uses of supersymmetry has nothing to do with the naturalness problem at all.

The point is that quantum field theories that have supersymmetry are mathematically simpler than those that don’t. For certain physical questions — not all questions, by any means, but for some of the most interesting ones — it is sometimes possible to solve their equations exactly. And this makes it possible to learn far more about these quantum field theories than about their non-supersymmetric cousins.

Who cares? you might ask. Since supersymmetry isn’t part of the real world in our experiments, it seems of no use to study supersymmetric quantum field theories.

But that view would be deeply naive. It’s naive for three reasons.

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Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Predictions (Part 6)

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For More Advanced Non-Experts

[This is part 6 of a series, which begins here.]

I’ve explained in earlier posts how we can calculate many things in the quantum field theory that is known as the “Standard Model” of particle physics, itself an amalgam of three, simpler quantum field theories.

When forces are “weak”, in the technical sense, calculations can generally be done by a method of successive approximation (called “perturbation theory”).  When forces are very “strong”, however, this method doesn’t work. Specifically, for processes involving the strong nuclear force, in which the distances involved are larger than a proton and the energies smaller than the mass-energy of a proton, some other method is needed.  (See Figure 1 of Part 5.)

One class of methods involves directly simulating, using a computer, the behavior of the quantum field theory equations for the strong nuclear force. More precisely, we simulate in a simplified version of the real world, the imaginary world shown in Figure 1 below, where

  • the weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force are turned off,
  • the electron, muon, tau, neutrinos, W, Z and Higgs particles are ignored
  • the three heavier types of quarks are also ignored

(See Figure 4 of Part 4 for more details.)  This makes the calculations a lot simpler.  And their results allow us, for instance, to understand why quarks and anti-quarks and gluons form the more complex particles called hadrons, of which protons and neutrons are just a couple of examples. Unfortunately, computer simulations still are nowhere near powerful enough for the calculation of some of the most interesting processes in nature… and won’t be for a long time.

Fig 1:
Fig 1: The idealized, imaginary world whose quantum field theory is used to make computer simulations of the real-world strong-nuclear force.

Another method I mentioned involves the use of an effective quantum field theory which describes the “objects” that the original theory produces at low energy. But that only works if you know what those objects are; in the real world [and the similar imaginary world of Figure 1] we know from experiment that those objects are pions and other low-mass hadrons, but generally we don’t know what they are.

This brings us to today’s story.  Our success with the Standard Model might give you the impression that we basically understand quantum field theory and how to make predictions using it, with a few exceptions. But this would be far, far from the truth. As far as we can tell, much (if not most) of quantum field theory remains deeply mysterious.

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Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Predictions (Part 5)

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[This is part 5 of a series, which begins here.]

In a previous post, I told you about how physicists use computers to study how the strong nuclear force combines certain elementary particles — specifically quarks and anti-quarks and gluons — into hadrons, such as protons and neutrons and pions.  Computers can also be used to study certain other phenomena that, because they involve the strong nuclear force where it is truly “strong” [in the technical sense described here], can’t be studied using simpler methods of successive approximation. While computers aren’t a panacea, they do allow some important and difficult questions about the strong nuclear force to be answered with precision.

To do these calculations, physicists study an imaginary world, as I described;

  • all forces except the strong nuclear force are ignored, and
  • all particles are forgotten except the gluons and the up, down and strange quarks (and their anti-quarks).
  • On top of this, the up, down and strange quark masses are typically changed. They are taken larger, which makes the calculations easier, and then gradually reduced towards their small values in the real world.

The Notion of “Effective” Quantum Field Theories

There’s one more interesting method for understanding the strong nuclear force that I haven’t mentioned yet, and it too involves changing the quark masses — making them smaller, rather than larger! And weirdly, this doesn’t involve the equations of the quantum field theory for the quarks, antiquarks and gluons at all. It involves a different quantum field theory altogether — one which says nothing about the quarks and gluons, but instead describes the physics of the hadrons themselves. More precisely, its equations are useful for making predictions about the hadrons of lowest mass — called pions, kaons and etas — and it works for processes

  • with rather low energy — too low to affect the behavior of the quarks and anti-quarks and gluons inside the pions — and
  • at rather long distance — too long to detect that the pions have a lot of internal structure.

This includes some of the phenomena involved in the physics of atomic nuclei, the next level up in the structure of matter (quarks/gluons → protons/neutrons → nuclei → atoms → molecules).

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The Twists and Turns of Hi(gg)story

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In sports, as in science, there are two very different types of heroes.  There are the giants who lead the their teams and their sport, winning championships and accolades, for years, and whose fame lives on for decades: the Michael Jordans, the Peles, the Lou Gherigs, the Joe Montanas. And then there are the unlikely … Read more

Some Pre-Nobel Prizes

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This year’s Nobel Prize, presumably to be given for the prediction of the particle known today as the “Higgs boson”, will be awarded next week.  But in the meantime, the American Physical Society has made a large number of awards.  A few of them are to people whose work I know about, so I thought … Read more

Quantum Field Theory, String Theory and Predictions (Part 3)

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[This is the third post in a series; here’s #1 and #2.] The quantum field theory that we use to describe the known particles and forces is called the “Standard Model”, whose structure is shown schematically in Figure 1. It involves an interweaving of three quantum field theories — one for the electromagnetic force, one … Read more

Freeman Dyson, 90, Still Disturbing the Universe

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I spent the last two days at an extraordinary conference, “Dreams of Earth and Sky”, celebrating the life and career of an extraordinary man, one of the many fascinating scientists whom I have had the good fortune to meet. I am referring to Freeman Dyson, professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), whose career … Read more

Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and Predictions (Part 2)

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[This post is a continuation of this one from Monday] Coming to Terms Before we continue, a little terminology — trivial, yet crucial and slightly subtle. Think about the distinction between the words “humanity” and “a human” and “humans”; or “higher education”, “university” and “universities”; or “royalty”, “king” and “kings”. In each case, the three … Read more

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