Deformed Instantons.pdf

a r X i v : h e p - p h / 0 4 0 9 2 5 1 v 1 2 1 S e p 2 0 0 4 Deformed Instantons Don Colladay and Patrick McDonald New College of Florida Sarasota, FL, 34243, U.S.A. In this talk, instantons are discussed in the presence of Lorentz violation. Con- ventional topological arguments are applied to classify the modified solutions to the Yang-Mills equations according to the topological charge. Explicit pertur- bations to the instantons are calculated in detail for the case of unit topological charge. 1 Introduction Yang-Mills theories are typically constructed using a compact Lie Group G with Lie algebra L(G), and a Lie algebra valued vector field Aμ(x). The action of the group on the vector field is defined by Aμ(x) → U(x)Aμ(x)U?1(x)? i g U(x)?μU?1(x) , (1) where U is a group element. The field strength tensor is then defined as Fμν = ? i g [Dμ, Dν ] , (2) where the covariant derivative is taken as Dμ = ?μ+igAμ. With this definition, the field strength transforms in the simple way Fμν → U(x)FμνU?1(x) . (3) The standard gauge invariant action is constructed by forming the integrated trace over the Lorentz invariant square of the field tensor SY M(A) = 1 2 ∫ d4x Tr[FμνF μν ] . (4) Extremization of this action with respect to A yields the equations of motion [Dμ, F μν ] = 0 . (5) 1 The Bianchi identity follows from the definition of the field strength and yields a further set of equations [Dμ, F? μν ] = 0 , (6) where F?μν = 12? μναβFαβ is the dual of F . Note that nonabelian groups yield nonlinear differential equations due to the nonvanishing field commutators. It is possible that more fundamental theories of nature may contain small Lorentz-breaking effects arising from new physics at higher energy scales.[1] The Standard Model Extension (SME) provides a general framework within which to study Yang-Mills theory in the presence of Lorentz violation.[2, 3] This type of gauge theory has also been extended to include the gravitational sector.[4] Including only gauge in