Is Prequantum Field Theory a Valuable Area of Research?

[Urs Schreiber]

Urs Schreiber submitted a new PF Insights post

Examples of Prequantum Field Theories IV: Wess-Zumino-Witten-type Theories

Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.

 

[David Corfield]

"The bouquet which emanates form these..." should be FROM. Also various pieces of latex didn't compile.

Have you seen any other interesting bouquets? What would happen in the complex analytic world? I see there is some gauge theoretic interest in complex analytic superspaces, $$mathbb{C]^{p|q)$$, such as p. 12 of http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.03048.

 

[Urs Schreiber]

"The bouquet which emanates form these..." should be FROM. Also various pieces of latex didn't compile

Thanks for catching this! All fixed now.

Have you seen any other interesting bouquets?

We had looked a bit into the higher tower of cocycles emanating from a semisimple Lie algebra, which in the first stage yields 3d-Chern-Simons theory on G-gauge fields, in the second stage yields 7d-Chern-Simons theory on String(G)-higher gauge fields, and then in the next stage yields an 11-dimensional CS theory that Hisham argues is related to the "M9-brane".

I see there is some gauge theoretic interest in complex analytic superspaces, such as p. 12 of http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.03048.

Yes, superstring perturbation theory in principle is all about complex analytic supergeometry, due to it being all about super Riemann surfaces.

 

[glaucousNoise]

what's the point of this mystical, arcane stuff? It seems like you've used extremely dense, convoluted language to construct a model that doesn't appear to describe nature.

I'm just a humble biologist here.

 

[bhobba]

what's the point of this mystical, arcane stuff? It seems like you've used extremely dense, convoluted language to construct a model that doesn't appear to describe nature.

He is a mathematical physicist. Its the type of thing they do - eg delve deeply into the underlying mathematical structure of our theories.

My background is math, and the detail of what he writes is way beyond my present level. But you can still read it and glean bits and pieces here and there that are interesting.

Thanks
Bill