2023/12/13 by Jin, Qingjun, Ren, Ke, Yang, Gang +1 · 1 citation
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2312.08445
In this paper, we build on our previous work to further investigate the role of evanescent operators in gauge theories, with a particular focus on their contribution to violations of unitarity. We develop an efficient method for calculating the norms of gauge-invariant operators in Yang-Mills (YM) theory by employing on-shell form factors. Our analysis, applicable to general spacetime dimensions, reveals the existence of negative norm states among evanescent operators. We also explore the one-loop anomalous dimensions of these operators and find complex anomalous dimensions. We broaden our analysis by considering YM theory coupled with scalar fields and we observe similar patterns of non-unitarity. The presence of negative norm states and complex anomalous dimensions across these analyses provides compelling evidence that general gauge theories are non-unitary in non-integer spacetime dimensions.