Abstract I bosonize the position-space correlators of flavor-diagonal scalar fermion bilinears in arbitrary generalizations of the Schwinger model with n F massless fermions coupled to n A gauge bosons for n F ≥ n A . For n A = n F , the fermion bilinears can be bosonized in terms of n F scalars with masses proportional to the gauge couplings. As in the Schwinger model, bosonization can be used to find all correlators, including those that are forbidden in perturbation theory by anomalous chiral symmetries, but there are subtleties when there is more than one gauge boson. The new result here is the general treatment of the dependence on gauge boson masses in models with more than one gauge symmetry. For n A < n F , there are fermion bilinears with nontrivial anomalous dimensions and there are unbroken chiral symmetries so some correlators vanish while others are non-zero due to chiral anomlies. Taking careful account of the dependence on the masses, I show how the n A < n F models emerge from n A = n F as gauge couplings (and thus gauge boson masses) go to zero. When this is done properly, the limit of zero gauge coupling is smooth. Our consistent treatment of gauge boson masses guarantees that anomalous symmetries are broken while unbroken chiral symmetries are preserved because correlators that break the non-anomalous symmetries go to zero in the limit of zero gauge coupling.

I show that if a dimensionless parameter is tuned to be close to the boundary of the positivity domain and symmetry breaking is driven by a cubic term in the Lagrangian, the scale of the physics of symmetry breaking in a quantum field theory as measured by the Higgs mass can be much greater than the dimensional scales in the classical Lagrangian. Radiative corrections produce large and physically important corrections, helping to stabilize the large VEV. The resulting picture contrasts sharply with the “modern” view of QFT as an effective field theory. I describe how this mechanism might produce the GUT scale in an SU(5) model in which the dimensional parameters in the Lagrangian are at the low scale.

I show that if a dimensionless parameter is tuned to be close to the boundary of the positivity domain and symmetry breaking is driven by a cubic term in the Lagrangian, the scale of the physics of symmetry breaking in a quantum field theory as measured by the Higgs mass can be much greater than the dimensional scales in the classical Lagrangian. Radiative corrections produce large and physically important corrections, helping to stabilize the large VEV. The resulting picture contrasts sharply with the "modern" view of QFT as an effective field theory. I describe how this mechanism might produce the GUT scale in an SU(5) model in which the dimensional parameters in the Lagrangian are at the low scale.

A bstract I discuss the 2-flavor Schwinger model with θ = 0 and small equal and opposite fermion masses (or θ = π with equal masses). The massless model has an unparticle sector with unbroken conformal symmetry. I argue that this special mass term modifies the conformal sector without breaking the conformal symmetry. I show in detail how mass-perturbation-theory works for correlators of flavor-diagonal fermion scalar bilinears. The result provides quantitative evidence that the theory has no mass gap for small non-zero fermion masses. The massive fermions are bound into conformally invariant unparticle stuff. I show how the long-distance conformal symmetry is maintained when small fermion masses are turned on and calculate the relevant scaling dimensions for small mass. I calculate the corrections to the 2- and 4-point functions of the fermion-bilinear scalars to leading order in perturbation theory in the fermion mass and describe a straightforward procedure to extend the calculation to all higher scalar correlators. I hope that this model is a useful and non-trivial example of unparticle physics, a sector with unbroken conformal symmetry coupled to interacting massive particles, in which we can analyze the particle physics in a consistent approximation.

The International Linear Collider (ILC) is on the table now as a new global energy-frontier accelerator laboratory taking data in the 2030s. The ILC addresses key questions for our current understanding of particle physics. It is based on a proven accelerator technology. Its experiments will challenge the Standard Model of particle physics and will provide a new window to look beyond it. This document brings the story of the ILC up to date, emphasizing its strong physics motivation, its readiness for construction, and the opportunity it presents to the US and the global particle physics community.

Talk at the KITP Conference: Snowmass Theory Frontier - Feb. 23, 2022

The Sommerfield model with a massive vector field coupled to a massless fermion in 1+1 dimensions is an exactly solvable analog of a Bank-Zaks model. The “physics” of the model comprises a massive boson and an unparticle sector that survives at low energy as a conformal field theory (Thirring model). We analyze generalizations of the Sommerfield model, and the corresponding generalizations of the Schwinger model, with more massless fermions and more vector fields.

I discuss the two-flavor Schwinger model both without and with fermion masses. I argue that the phenomenon of "conformal coalescence," in unparticle physics in which linear combinations of short-distance operators can disappear from the long-distance theory, makes it easy to understand some puzzling features of the model with small fermion masses. In particular, I argue that for an average fermion mass m_{f} and a mass difference δm, so long as both are small compared to the dynamical gauge boson mass m=esqrt[2/π], isospin-breaking effects in the low-energy theory are exponentially suppressed by powers of exp[-(m/m_{f})^{2/3}] even if δm≈m_{f}. In the low-energy theory, this looks like exponential fine-tuning, but it is done automatically by conformal coalescence.

The Sommerfield model with a massive vector field coupled to a massless fermion in 1+1 dimensions is an exactly solvable analog of a Bank-Zaks model. The "physics" of the model comprises a massive boson and an unparticle sector that survives at low energy as a conformal field theory (Thirring model). I discuss the "Schwinger point" of the Sommerfield model in which the vector boson mass goes to zero. The limit is singular but gauge invariant quantities should be well-defined. I give a number of examples, both (trivially) with local operators and with nonlocal products connected by Wilson lines (the primary technical accomplishment in this note is the explicit and very pedestrian calculation of correlators involving straight Wilson lines). I hope that this may give some insight into the nature of bosonization in the Schwinger model and its connection with unparticle physics which in this simple case may be thought of as "incomplete bosonization."

We analyze generalizations of the Schwinger model with more massless fermions and more vector fields. We focus on models with the gauge structure of “diagonal color SU(n)” but unlike previous investigators, we do not assume that all the gauge boson masses are the same. Unlike the Schwinger model, these are Banks-Zaks models with conformal sectors that survive at long distances. In addition to local operators that go to “unparticle operators” with non-zero anomalous dimensions at long distances, they contain local operators like the ψ̅_Lψ_R operator in the Schwinger model which go to constants at long distances. These operators have calculable vacuum expectation values (up to phases). Cluster decomposition applied to correlation functions involving these operators yields nontrivial and calculable non-perturbative constraints on correlation functions. One consequence is “conformal coalescence” in which linear combinations of short distance operators disappear from the long-distance theory, leaving only one kind of unparticle stuff in the low-energy theory. We believe that our detailed analysis of diagonal color SU(n) paints an appealing picture of unparticle operators as the result of an incomplete binding of the massless fermions. We complete the picture (and the binding) by analyzing the diagonal color U(n) model with a very small U(1) coupling and thus a gauge boson with a dynamical mass much smaller than the other masses in the model. This model has a mass gap and we can see explicitly the transition from free-fermion behavior at short distances to unparticle physics at intermediate distances to the physics of massive particles at long distances.

In this brief talk, I will try to focus on the things that happened at the conference that seemed very important, but that I didn’t understand.

We discuss the issue of complementarity between the confining phase and the Higgs phase for gauge theories in which there are no light particles below the scale of confinement or spontaneous symmetry breaking. We show with a number of examples that even though the low energy effective theories are the same (and trivial), discontinuous changes in the structure of heavy stable particles can signal a phase transition and thus we can sometimes argue that two phases which have different structures of heavy particles that cannot be continuously connected and thus the phases cannot be complementary. We discuss what this means and suggest that such “stability conditions” can be a useful physical check for complementarity.

I construct a quantum field theory model with discrete scale invariance at tree level. The model has some unusual mathematical properties (such as the appearance of $q$-hypergeometric series) and may possibly have some interesting physical properties as well. In this note, I explore some possible physics that could be regarded as a violation of standard effective field theory ideas.