Search

A Bose star passing through cold molecular clouds may capture atoms, molecules and dust particles. The observational signature of such an event would be a relatively small amount of matter that is gravitationally bound. This binding may actually be provided by invisible dark matter forming the Bose star. We may expect a relative excess of heavier atoms, molecules, and solid dust compared to the content of giant cold molecular clouds since the velocity of heavy particles at a given temperature is lower and it may be small compared to the escape velocity, $v_\mathrm{rms} = \sqrt{3k_\mathrm{B} T/m_\mathrm{gas}} \ll v_\mathrm{esc}=\sqrt{2GM/R}$. Finally, the velocity of this captured matter cloud may correlate with the expected velocity of free dark matter particles (e.g. expected axion wind velocity relative to Earth).

Antiquark nuggets are hypothetical compact composite objects conjectured to account for a significant fraction of dark matter in the Universe. In contrast to quark nuggets, these objects consist of antimatter. They may remain undetected if they possess a sufficiently small cross section relative to their mass. In this paper, we investigate the allowed region in the parameter space of this model that is consistent with the observed neutrino flux from the Sun and the Earth, and the non-observation of seismic events with specific signatures of dark matter particles. We found the allowed values of the antibaryon charge number in this model to be in the interval $2\times 10^{24}10^{33}$, are not fully excluded by the present study, we show that they conflict with the non-observation of rare catastrophic explosion-like events on the Earth., Comment: 13 pages; v2: journal version

There is limited information about the interaction strength of a scalar dark matter candidate with hadrons and leptons for a scalar particle mass exceeding $10^{-3}$ eV while its interaction with photon is well studied. The scalar-photon coupling constant receives quantum corrections from one-loop Feynman diagrams which involve the scalar-lepton, scalar-quark, and scalar-W boson vertices. We calculate these one-loop quantum corrections and find new limits on the scalar particle interactions with electron, muon, tau, quarks, nucleons, gluons, Higgs, and W bosons by re-purposing the results of experiments measuring the scalar-photon interaction. Limits on interactions of heavy leptons and quarks have been obtained for the first time, and limits on other interactions in certain mass intervals are 2 to 15 orders of magnitude stronger than those presented in previous publications and exclude the resolution of the muon $g-2$ anomaly with scalar particle., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; V2: journal version

We propose a new mechanism of absorption of dark matter particles in atoms which resembles the Migdal effect of inelastic dark matter scattering. In this process, atom may be ionized upon absorption of a scalar particle through the scalar-nucleon Yukawa-type interaction. The crucial difference from the inelastic dark matter scattering on atoms is that the total energy of the particle, including its rest mass $mc^2$-term, is transferred to the electron. As a result, the emitted electron kinetic energy is about six orders in magnitude bigger than that in the dark matter scattering process. This absorption process allows one to probe dark matter particles with a relatively small mass, in the range from 1 to 100 keV, that cannot be detected in the scattering process. It is also possible to detect hypothetical scalar particles emitted from the Sun. We calculate absorption cross sections of this process in Na, Si, Ar, Ge, I, Xe, and Tl target atoms and extract limits on the scalar-nucleon interaction constant from null results of XENONnT experiment., Comment: 7 pages + appendices; journal version

We consider multishell configurations in the Skyrme model within the rational map ansatz. We show that equations for the Skyrme field are linearized in the limit of large number of shells, thus allowing for a simple analytic solution. Although this solution is approximate, it provides an accurate description of multishell configurations in the Skyrme model in the region where the Skyrme field is large, $F\gg1$. We use this solution to calculate the mass and the root mean square radius of multishell skyrmion configurations. In particular, for solutions with one unit of baryon charge per shell (the ``hedgehog'' solution) the mass scales as $M\propto B^2$, and its rms radius scales as $B^{1/2}$ with the baryon charge $B$. This scaling for the mass can be reduced to $M\propto B^{4/3}$ in the model with many units of baryon charge per shell. Although this solution is unstable against decays into single-shell or single-skyrmion configurations, it may be useful for modelling skyrmion stars or compact composite objects in some models of dark matter if the decay of such configurations is prevented by some mechanism., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure

Particle physics today faces the challenge of explaining the mystery of dark matter, the origin of matter over anti-matter in the Universe, the origin of the neutrino masses, the apparent fine-tuning of the electro-weak scale, and many other aspects of fundamental physics. Perhaps the most striking frontier to emerge in the search for answers involves new physics at mass scales comparable to familiar matter, below the GeV-scale, or even radically below, down to sub-eV scales, and with very feeble interaction strength. New theoretical ideas to address dark matter and other fundamental questions predict such feebly interacting particles (FIPs) at these scales, and indeed, existing data provide numerous hints for such possibility. A vibrant experimental program to discover such physics is under way, guided by a systematic theoretical approach firmly grounded on the underlying principles of the Standard Model. This document represents the report of the FIPs 2022 workshop, held at CERN between the 17 and 21 October 2022 and aims to give an overview of these efforts, their motivations, and the decadal goals that animate the community involved in the search for FIPs., Comment: 383 pp, 176 figures

Within the quark nugget model, dark matter particles may be represented by compact composite objects composed of a large number of quarks or antiquarks. Due to strong interaction with visible matter, antiquark nuggets should manifest themselves in the form of rare atmospheric events on the Earth. They may produce ionized trails in the atmosphere similar to the meteor trails. There are, however, several features which should allow one to distinguish antiquark nugget trails from meteor ones. We study the properties of ionized trails from antiquark nuggets in the air and show that they may be registered by standard meteor radar detectors. Non-observation of such trails pushes up the mean baryon charge number in the quark nugget model, $|B|>4\times 10^{27}$., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures

The amplitude of the pseudoscalar (axion) or scalar field fluctuates on a time scale of order of million field oscillation periods which is a typical coherence time in the virialized axion galactic dark matter halo model. This causes fluctuations of frequencies of atomic clocks on the same time scale. We show that this effect may be employed to search for the axion and scalar field dark matter with atomic and nuclear clocks. We re-purpose the results of the atomic clocks experiments comparing the variations of frequencies of hyperfine transitions in Rb and Cs atoms as well as in hydrogen atom vs cavity frequency fluctuations, and extract new limits on the axion coupling constant $f_a$ for masses in the range $2.4\times 10^{-17}\text{ eV}\lesssim m \lesssim 10^{-13}\text{ eV}$. We also show that similar energy shifts arise in the second-order perturbation theory with linear in the pseudoscalar field interaction. These shifts may be potentially measured with nuclear clocks based on the low-energy transition in $^{229}$Th nucleus. We propose a procedure which could, in principle, help determine the axion mass if the axion dark matter signal is present in experimental data sets., Comment: Numerical simulations for realistic model of the stochastic axion (or scalar) field have been presented including procedure which allows one to extract axion mass and interaction strength from experimental data

Scalar-field dark matter models imply small oscillations of fundamental constants. These oscillations could result in observable variations of the magnetic field in a permanent magnet. We propose an experiment for detection of this type of dark matter through searches of oscillations of magnetic field of permanent magnets with a SQUID magnetometer or a low-noise radiofrequency amplifier. We show that this experiment may have comparable sensitivity to leading experiments searching for variations of fundamental constants in the range of frequencies from a few Hz to about 1 MHz. We also discuss applicability of the approach of variations of fundamental constants for accounting for the interaction with scalar dark matter., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure

Fundamental constants such as masses and coupling constants of elementary particles can have small temporal and spatial variations in the scalar field dark matter model. These variations entail time oscillations of other constants, such as the Bohr and nuclear magnetons, Bohr radius and the hyperfine structure constant. In the presence of an external magnetic field, these oscillations induce hyperfine transitions in atoms and molecules. We determine the probability of magnetic dipole hyperfine transitions, caused by the oscillating fundamental constants, and propose an experiment that could detect the scalar field dark matter through this effect. This experiment may be sensitive to the scalar field and axion dark matter with mass in the range $1\,\mu\text{eV}

We establish new experiments to search for dark matter based on a model of a light scalar field with a dilaton-like coupling to the electromagnetic field, which is strongly motivated by superstring theory. We estimate the power of the photon signal in the process of a non-resonant scalar-photon transition and in a cavity resonator permeated by electric and magnetic fields. We show that existing cavity resonators employed in the experiments like ADMX have a low but non-vanishing sensitivity to the scalar-photon coupling. As a result, by re-purposing the results of the ADMX experiment, we find new limits on the scalar-photon coupling in the range of the scalar field masses from 2.7 to 4.2 $\mu$eV. We discuss possible modifications of this experiment, which enhance the sensitivity to the scalar field dark matter. We also propose a broadband experiment for scalar field dark matter searches based on a high-voltage capacitor. The estimated sensitivity of this experiment exceeds by nearly two orders in magnitude the sensitivity of the experiment based on molecular spectroscopy., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; V2: minor changes, references added

We study astrophysical implications of the quark nugget model of dark matter and propose observational techniques for detecting anti-Quark Nuggets (anti-QNs) with modern telescopes. Anti-QNs are compact composite objects of antiquark matter with a typical radius $R\sim 10^{-5}$ cm and density exceeding that of nuclear matter. Atoms and molecules of interstellar medium collide with anti-quark nuggets and annihilate. We estimate thermal radiation from anti-QNs in cold molecular clouds in our galaxy and show that this radiation appears sufficiently strong to be observed in infrared and visible spectra. Proton annihilation on anti-QNs produces $\gamma$-photons with energies in the range 100-400 MeV which may be detected by telescopes such as Fermi-LAT. We have found that anti-QN radiation inside the solar corona is too weak to produce a significant plasma heating or any other observable effects, while the radiation of $\gamma$-photons from the chromosphere may be observable. We also address the problem of survival of anti-quark nuggets in the early universe., Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures

The Quark Nugget (QN) model of dark matter suggests that the dark matter may consist of compact composite objects of quark matter. Although such composite particles can strongly interact with visible matter, they may remain undetected because of a small cross section to mass ratio. We focus on anti-QNs made of antiquarks since they are heated by annihilation with visible matter and radiate. We study the radiation spectrum and power from anti-QNs in our galaxy and compare them with satellite observations. Thermal radiation from anti-QN is produced by fluctuations of the positron density. We calculate the thermal radiation of anti-QNs with the use of the Mie theory and found its ratio to the black-body radiation. This allows us to find the equilibrium temperature of anti-QNs in the interstellar medium and determine their contribution to the observed diffuse background radiation in our galaxy in different frequency intervals, from radio to UV. We also consider non-thermal radiations from anti-QNs which are produced by products of annihilations of particles of the interstellar gas with anti-QNs. Such radiations include photons from decays of $\pi^0$ mesons, synchrotron, bremsstrahlung and transition radiations from $\pi^\pm$ mesons, electrons and positrons. Synchrotron radiation in MHz frequency range and flux of photons from $\pi^0$ decays may be above the detection threshold in such detectors as Fermi-LAT., Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. V2: minor changes, references added

We revisit the properties of positron cloud in quark nugget (QN) model of dark matter (DM). In this model, dark matter particles are represented by compact composite objects composed of a large number of quarks or antiquarks with total baryon number $B\sim 10^{24}$. These particles have a very small number density in our galaxy which makes them "dark" to all DM detection experiments and cosmological observations. In this scenario, anti-quark nuggets play special role because they may manifest themselves in annihilation with visible matter. We study electron-positron annihilation in collisions of free electrons, hydrogen and helium gases with the positron cloud of anti-quark nuggets. We show that a strong electric field of anti-quark nuggets destroys positronium, hydrogen and helium atoms and prevents electrons from penetrating deeply in positron cloud, thus reducing the probability of the electron-positron annihilation by nearly five orders of magnitude. Therefore, electron annihilation in the positron cloud of QNs cannot explain the observed by SPI/INTEGRAL detector photons with energy 511 keV in the center of our galaxy. These photons may be explained by a different mechanism in which QN captures protons which annihilate with anti-quarks in the quark core or transform to neutrons thus reducing the QN core charge and increasing QN temperature. As a result QN loses positrons to space which annihilate with electrons there. Even more positrons are produced from charged pions resulting from the proton annihilation. Another manifestation may be emission of photons from $\pi^0$ decays., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures; v2: minor corrections, references added

In heavy atoms and ions, nuclear structure effects are significantly enhanced due to the overlap of the electron wave functions with the nucleus. This overlap rapidly increases with the nuclear charge $Z$. We study the energy level shifts induced by the electric dipole and electric quadrupole nuclear polarization effects in atoms and ions with $Z \geq 20$. The electric dipole polarization effect is enhanced by the nuclear giant dipole resonance. The electric quadrupole polarization effect is enhanced because the electrons in a heavy atom or ion move faster than the rotation of the deformed nucleus, thus experiencing significant corrections to the conventional approximation in which they `see' an averaged nuclear charge density. The electric nuclear polarization effects are computed numerically for $1s$, $2s$, $2p_{1/2}$ and high $ns$ electrons. The results are fitted with elementary functions of nuclear parameters (nuclear charge, mass number, nuclear radius and deformation). We construct an effective potential which models the energy level shifts due to nuclear polarization. This effective potential, when added to the nuclear Coulomb interaction, may be used to find energy level shifts in multi-electron ions, atoms and molecules. The fitting functions and effective potentials of the nuclear polarization effects are important for the studies of isotope shifts and nonlinearity in the King plot which are now used to search for new interactions and particles., Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 10 tables

We demonstrate that electron electric dipole moment experiments with molecules in paramagnetic state are sensitive to $P,T$-violating nuclear forces and other $CP$-violating parameters in the hadronic sector. These experiments, in particular, measure the coupling constant $C_{SP}$ of the $CP$-odd contact semileptonic interaction. We establish relations between $C_{SP}$ and different $CP$-violating hadronic parameters including strength constants of the $CP$-odd nuclear potentials, $CP$-odd pion-nucleon interactions, quark-chromo EDM and QCD vacuum angle. These relations allow us to find limits on various $CP$-odd hadronic parameters., Comment: 13 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2004.10359

Experiments with paramagnetic ground or metastable excited states of molecules (ThO, HfF$^+$, YbF, YbOH, BaF, PbO, etc.) provide strong constraints on electron electric dipole moment (EDM) and coupling constant $C_{SP}$ of contact semileptonic interaction. We compute new contributions to $C_{SP}$ arising from the nucleon EDMs due to combined electric and magnetic electron-nucleon interaction. This allows us to improve limits from the experiments with paramagnetic molecules on the $CP$-violating parameters, such as the proton EDM, $|d_p|< 1.1\times 10^{-23} e\cdot $cm, the QCD vacuum angle, $|\bar \theta|<1.4\times 10^{-8}$, as well as the quark chromo-EDMs and $\pi$-meson-nucleon couplings. Our results may also be used to search for the axion dark matter which produces oscillating $\bar\theta$., Comment: 27 pages. V2: major corrections, V3: comments on uncertainties and other minor corrections, journal version

In atoms and molecules, the electrons screen the nucleus from the external electric field. However, if the frequency of the electric field reaches the energy of atomic or molecular transition, the electric field at the nucleus may be resonantly enhanced by many orders in magnitude. In this paper, we study the mechanisms of screening or enhancement of electric field acting on the nuclei in solid states. We show that in dielectric crystals the phonon oscillations of the lattice play crucial role for determining the electric field on nuclei in the MHz-THz region. As an application, we propose an experimental scheme for measuring nuclear electric dipole moment in a solid state based on the coherent excitation of acoustic phonons., Comment: 6 pages

Dark photon is a massive vector field which interacts only with the physical photon through the kinetic mixing. This coupling is assumed to be weak so that the dark photon becomes almost unobservable in processes with elementary particles, but can serve as a dark matter particle. We argue that in very early Universe ($z>3000$) this vector field may have the equation of state of radiation ($w=1/3$) but later behaves as cold dark matter ($w=0$). This may slightly change the expansion rate of the Universe at early time and reduce the value of the sound horizon of baryon acoustic oscillations (standard ruler). As a result, in this model the value of the Hubble constant appears to be larger than that in the standard $\Lambda$CDM model. In particular, it is sufficient to have the dark photon mass of order $m\sim 10^{-27}-10^{-25}$ eV to fit the value of the Hubble constant to $H_0 = 73$ km$\cdot$s$^{-1}$Mpc$^{-1}$ thus resolving the Hubble tension., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure

Dark photon is a massive vector particle which couples to the physical photon through the kinetic mixing term. Such particles, if exist, are produced in photon beams and, in particular, in laser radiation. Due to the oscillations between the physical photon and the dark photon, the latter may be, in principle, detected in the light-shining-through-a-wall experiment. We propose a variant of this experiment where the detection of dark photons is based on the atomic transitions. The key feature of this scheme is that the detection probability is first order in the coupling constant due to the interference term in the photon and dark photon absorption amplitudes. We expect that such experiment may give new constraints on dark photon coupling constant in the mass region $10^{-3}< m < 10^{-2}$ eV., Comment: 8 pages

We construct ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric low-energy effective action of $5D, {\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in $5D, {\cal N}=1$ harmonic superspace. It is obtained as a hypermultiplet completion of the leading $W \ln W$-term in the ${\cal N}=1$ SYM low-energy effective action by invoking the second implicit on-shell ${\cal N}=1$ supersymmetry. After passing to components, the ${\cal N}=2$ effective action constructed displays, along with other terms, the $SO(5)$-invariant $F^4/X^3$ term. Though we specialize to the case of $SU(2)$ gauge group spontaneously broken to $U(1)$, our consideration is applicable to any gauge symmetry broken to some abelian subgroup., Comment: 12 pages; v2: minor changes, references added

According to the Schiff theorem, the atomic electrons completely screen the atomic nucleus from an external static electric field. However, this is not the case if the field is time-dependent. Electronic orbitals in atoms either shield the nucleus from an oscillating electric field when the frequency of the field is off the atomic resonances or enhance this field when its frequency approaches an atomic transition energy. In molecules, not only electronic, but also rotational and vibrational states are responsible for the screening of oscillating electric fields. As will be shown in this paper, the screening of a low-frequency field inside molecules is much weaker than it appears in atoms owing to the molecular ro-vibrational states. We systematically study the screening of oscillating electric fields inside diatomic molecules in different frequency regimes,i.e., when the field's frequency is either of order of ro-vibrational or electronic transition frequencies. In the resonance case, we demonstrate that the microwave-frequency electric field may be enhanced up to six orders in magnitude due to ro-vibrational states. We also derive the general formulae for the screening and resonance enhancement of oscillating electric field in polyatomic molecules. Possible applications of these results include nuclear electric dipole moment measurements and stimulation of nuclear reactions by laser light., Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure

When an atom is placed into an oscillating electric field with frequency far from atomic resonances, the atomic electrons partly shield this field at the nucleus. It is conjectured that when the frequency of electric field reaches an atomic resonance, the electric field at the nucleus may be significantly enhanced. In this paper, we systematically study the mechanisms of this enhancement and show that it may reach five orders in magnitude in particular cases. As an application, we consider laser-assisted neutron capture in 139-Lanthanum nucleus and screening and resonance enhancement of nuclear electromagnetic transitions by electrons., Comment: 9 pages

In certain laboratory experiments the production and/or detection of axions is due to the photon-axion transformations in a strong magnetic field. This process is coherent, and the rate of the transformation is proportional to the length $l$ and magnitude $B$ of the magnetic field squared, $\sim l^2B^2$. In the present paper, we consider coherent production of axions due to the forward scattering of photons on atoms or molecules. This process may be represented as being due to an effective electromagnetic field which converts photons to axions. We present analytical expressions for such effective magnetic and electric fields induced by resonant atomic M0 and M1 transitions, as well as give some numerical estimates for these fields. The corresponding experiments would allow one to measure the electron-axion coupling constant $g_{ae}$ in the same way as the photon-axion coupling $g_{a\gamma}$ is studied., Comment: 6 pages

The exchange of an axion-like particle between atomic electrons and the nucleus may induce electric dipole moments (EDMs) of atoms and molecules. This interaction is described by a parity- and time-reversal-invariance-violating potential which depends on the product of a scalar $g^s$ and a pseudoscalar $g^p$ coupling constant. We consider the interaction with the specific combination of these constants, $g_e^s g_N^p$, which gives significant contributions to the EDMs of diamagnetic atoms. In this paper, we calculate these contributions to the EDMs of $^{199}$Hg, $^{129}$Xe, $^{211}$Rn and $^{225}$Ra for a wide range of axion masses. Comparing these results with recent experimental EDM measurements, we place new constraints on $g_e^s g_N^p$. The most stringent atomic EDM limits come from $^{199}$Hg and improve on existing laboratory limits from other experiments for axion masses exceeding $10^{-2}$ eV., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; v3: published version

Detection schemes for the quantum chromodynamics axions and other axion-like particles in light-shining-through-a-wall (LSW) experiments are based on the conversion of these particles into photons in a magnetic field. An alternative scheme may involve the detection via a resonant atomic or molecular transition induced by resonant axion absorption. The signal obtained in this process is second order in the axion-electron interaction constant but may become first order if we allow interference between the axion-induced transition amplitude and the transition amplitude induced by the electromagnetic radiation that produces the axions., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables

We study two-loop quantum corrections to the low-energy effective actions in N=(2,2) and N=(4,4) SQED in the Coulomb branch. In the latter model, the low-energy effective action is described by a generalized Kahler potential which depends on both chiral and twisted chiral superfields. We demonstrate that this generalized Kahler potential is one-loop exact and corresponds to the N=(4,4) sigma-model with torsion presented by Rocek, Schoutens and Sevrin. In the N=(2,2) SQED, the effective Kahler potential is not protected against higher-loop quantum corrections. The two-loop quantum corrections to this potential and the corresponding sigma-model metric are explicitly found., Comment: 40 pages; v2: references added, typos corrected

We review various superspace approaches to the description of the low-energy effective action in N=4 super Yang-Mills (SYM) theory. We consider the four-derivative part of the low-energy effective action in the Coulomb branch. The typical components of this effective action are the gauge field F^4/X^4 and the scalar field Wess-Zumino terms. We construct N=4 supersymmetric completions of these terms in the framework of different harmonic superspaces supporting N=2,3,4 supersymmetries. These approaches are complementary to each other in the sense that they make manifest different subgroups of the total SU(4) R-symmetry group. We show that the effective action acquires an extremely simple form in those superspaces which manifest the non-anomalous maximal subgroups of SU(4). The common characteristic feature of our construction is that we restore the superfield effective actions exclusively by employing the N=4 supersymmetry and/or superconformal PSU(2,2|4) symmetry., Comment: 102 pages, v2: references added

We develop a superfield formulation of gauge and matter field theories on a two-dimensional sphere with rigid N=(2,2) as well as extended supersymmetry. The construction is based on a supercoset SU(2|1)/[U(1) x U(1)] containing $S^2$ as the bosonic subspace. We derive an explicit form of supervielbein and covariant derivatives on this coset, and use them to construct classical superfield actions for gauge and matter supermultiplets in this superbackground. We then apply superfield methods for computing one-loop partition functions of these theories and demonstrate how the localization technique works directly in the superspace., Comment: 1+44 pages

We consider the superfield formulation of supersymmetric gauge and matter field theories on a three-dimensional sphere with rigid ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetry, as well as with ${\cal N}> 2$. The construction is based on a supercoset $SU(2|1)/U(1)$ containing $S^3$ as the bosonic subspace. We derive an explicit form of $SU(2|1)/U(1)$ supervielbein and covariant derivatives, and use them to construct classical superfield actions for gauge and matter supermultiplets in this superbackground. We then apply superfield methods for computing one-loop partition functions of these theories and demonstrate how the localization technique works directly in the superspace., Comment: 1+64 pages; v2: Section 4.2 and a reference are added

We compute two-loop low-energy effective actions in Abelian Chern-Simons matter models with N=2 and N=3 supersymmetry up to four-derivative order. Calculations are performed with a slowly-varying gauge superfield background. Though the gauge superfield propagator depends on the gauge fixing parameter, it is shown that the obtained results are independent of this parameter. In the massless case the considered models are superconformal. We demonstrate that the superconformal symmetry strongly restricts the form of two-loop quantum corrections to the effective actions such that the obtained terms have simpler structure than the analogous ones in the effective action of three-dimensional supersymmetric electrodynamics (SQED) with vanishing topological mass., Comment: 1+30 pages; v2: references added, misprints corrected; v3: minor changes, published version

We study two-loop Euler-Heisenberg effective actions in three-dimensional N=2 and N=4 supersymmetric quantum electrodynamics (SQED) without Chern-Simons term. We find exact expressions for propagators of chiral superfields interacting with slowly-varying N=2 gauge superfield. Using these propagators we compute two-loop effective actions in the N=2 and N=4 SQED as the functionals of superfield strengths and their covariant spinor derivatives. The obtained effective actions contain new terms having no four-dimensional analogs. As an application, we find two-loop quantum corrections to the moduli space metric in the N=2 SQED., Comment: 1+33 pages, v2: minor changes; v3: reference added

We review the background field method for three-dimensional Yang-Mills and Chern-Simons models in N=2 superspace. Superfield proper time (heat kernel) techniques are developed and exact expressions of heat kernels for constant backgrounds are presented. The background field method and heat kernel techniques are applied for evaluating the low-energy effective actions in N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills and Chern-Simons models as well as in N=4 and N=8 SYM theories., Comment: 1+30 pages, dedicated to the 60 year Jubilee of Professor D.I. Kazakov; references added. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1010.4967

We study local superspace contributions to low-energy effective action in general chiral three-dimensional superfield model. The effective Kahler and chiral potentials are computed in explicit form up to the two-loop order. In accordance with the non-renormalization theorem, the ultraviolet divergences appear only in the full superspace while the effective chiral potential receives only finite quantum contributions in the massless case. As an application, the two-loop effective scalar potential is found for the three-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric Wess-Zumino model., Comment: 1+29 pages

We construct a manifestly N=3 supersymmetric low-energy effective action of N=3 super Yang-Mills theory. The effective action is written in the N=3 harmonic superspace and respects the full N=3 superconformal symmetry. On mass shell this action is responsible for the four-derivative terms in the N=4 SYM effective action, such as F^4/X^4 and its supersymmetric completions, while off shell it involves also higher-derivative terms. For constant Maxwell and scalar fields its bosonic part coincides, up to the F^6/X^8 order, with the bosonic part of the D3 brane action in the AdS_5 x S^5 background. We also argue that in the sector of scalar fields it involves the correctly normalized Wess-Zumino term with the implicit SU(3) symmetry., Comment: 1+29 pages; v2: minor corrections, JHEP style

We develop the background field method in the N=2, d=3 superspace for studying effective actions in three-dimensional SYM models which live in the world-volume of various 2-branes. In particular, the low-energy effective action for the N=2 quiver gauge theory with four chiral superfields in the bifundamental representation is studied. This gauge theory describes the D2 brane probing the conifold singularity. Surprisingly, the leading terms in this effective action reproduce the classical action of the Abelian ABJM theory confirming the fact that the M2 brane can be considered as the effective theory for the D2 brane at strong coupling. Apart from this N=2 quiver gauge theory we study the low-energy effective action in pure N=2, N=4 and N=8 SYM theories with gauge group SU(N) spontaneously broken down to an Abelian subgroup. In particular, for the N=4 SYM we find similar correspondence between the leading terms in its effective action and the classical action of the Abelian Gaiotto-Witten theory., Comment: 1+39 pages; v2: misprints corrected, references added

We study the low-energy effective actions for gauge superfields induced by quantum N=2 and N=4 supersymmetric matter fields in three-dimensional Minkowski space. Analyzing the superconformal invariants in the N=2 superspace we propose a general form of the N=2 gauge invariant and superconformal effective action. The leading terms in this action are fixed by the symmetry up to the coefficients while the higher order terms with respect to the Maxwell field strength are found up to one arbitrary function of quasi-primary N=2 superfields constructed from the superfield strength and its covariant spinor derivatives. Then we find this function and the coefficients by direct quantum computations in the N=2 superspace. The effective action of N=4 gauge multiplet is obtained by generalizing the N=2 effective action., Comment: 1+27 pages; v2: minor corrections, references added

We develop the background field method for studying classical and quantum aspects of N=3, d=3 Chern-Simons and matter theories in N=3 harmonic superspace. As one of the immediate consequences, we prove a nonrenormalization theorem implying the ultra-violet finiteness of the corresponding supergraph perturbation theory. We also derive the general hypermultiplet and gauge superfield propagators in a Chern-Simons background. The leading supergraphs with two and four external lines are evaluated. In contrast to the non-supersymmetric theory, the leading quantum correction to the massive charged hypermultiplet proves to be the super Yang-Mills action rather than the Chern-Simons one. The hypermultiplet mass is induced by a constant triplet of central charges in the N=3, d=3 Poincare superalgebra., Comment: 1+37 pages, 3 figures; v2: a reference added, to appear in JHEP

We construct the classical action of the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena (ABJM) model in the N=3, d=3 harmonic superspace. In such a formulation three out of six supersymmetries are realized off shell while the other three mix the superfields and close on shell. The superfield action involves two hypermultiplet superfields in the bifundamental representation of the gauge group and two Chern-Simons gauge superfields corresponding to the left and right gauge groups. The N=3 superconformal invariance allows only for a minimal gauge interaction of the hypermultiplets. Amazingly, the correct sextic scalar potential of ABJM emerges after the elimination of auxiliary fields. Besides the original U(N)xU(N) ABJM model, we also construct N=3 superfield formulations of some generalizations. For the SU(2)xSU(2) case we give a simple superfield proof of its enhanced N=8 supersymmetry and SO(8) R-symmetry., Comment: 1+35 pages, minor changes, a reference added, published version

We study the N=4 harmonic superparticle model, both with and without central charge and quantize it. Since the central charge breaks the U(4) R-symmetry group of the N=4 superalgebra down to USp(4), we consider the superparticle dynamics in N=4 harmonic superspace with USp(4)/(U(1)xU(1)) harmonic variables. We show that the quantization of a massive superparticle with central charge leads to a superfield realization of the N=4 massive vector multiplet in N=4 harmonic superspace. In the massless case without central charge the superparticle quantization reproduces three different multiplets: the N=4 SYM multiplet, the N=4 gravitino multiplet and N=4 supergravity multiplet. The SYM multiplet is described by six analytic superfield strengths with different types of analyticity. We show that these strengths solve the N=4 SYM constraints and can be used for the construction of actions in N=4 harmonic superspace., Comment: 1+42 pages, references added, published version

We consider the formulation and quantization of the N=3 superparticle model, both with and without central charge. Without the central charge the action possesses U(3) invariance and therefore is naturally quantized in the N=3 harmonic superspace. The quantization reproduces the N=3 supergauge strength multiplets, described by analytic N=3 superfields and a gravitino multiplet as a constrained N=3 chiral superfield. When the central charge is present, it breaks the U(3) R-symmetry of N=3 superalgebra down to SU(2)xU(1), and the corresponding superparticle model is formulated in the N=2 harmonic superspace extended by a pair of extra Grassmann variables. The quantization of such a model leads to the massive BPS N=3 vector multiplet. It is shown that upon additional superfield constraints such multiplet reduces to the massive N=2 vector multiplet., Comment: 1+31 pages; minor mistakes are corrected, reference added, published version

We review the non-anticommutative Q-deformations of N=(1,1) supersymmetric theories in four-dimensional Euclidean harmonic superspace. These deformations preserve chirality and harmonic Grassmann analyticity. The associated field theories arise as a low-energy limit of string theory in specific backgrounds and generalize the Moyal-deformed supersymmetric field theories. A characteristic feature of the Q-deformed theories is the half-breaking of supersymmetry in the chiral sector of the Euclidean superspace. Our main focus is on the chiral singlet Q-deformation, which is distinguished by preserving the SO(4) Spin(4) ``Lorentz'' symmetry and the SU(2) R-symmetry. We present the superfield and component structures of the deformed N=(1,0) supersymmetric gauge theory as well as of hypermultiplets coupled to a gauge superfield: invariant actions, deformed transformation rules, and so on. We discuss quantum aspects of these models and prove their renormalizability in the abelian case. For the charged hypermultiplet in an abelian gauge superfield background we construct the deformed holomorphic effective action., Comment: 1+60 pages, typos corrected, references added

We investigate the quantum aspects of a charged hypermultiplet in deformed N=(1,1) superspace with singlet non-anticommutative deformation of supersymmetry. This model is a "star" modification of the hypermultiplet interacting with a background Abelian vector superfield. We prove that this model is renormalizable in the sense that the divergent part of the effective action is proportional to the N=(1,0) non-anticommutative super Yang-Mills action. We also calculate the finite part of the low-energy effective action depending on the vector multiplet, which corresponds to the (anti)holomorphic potential. The holomorphic piece is just deformed to the star-generalization of the standard holomorphic potential, while the antiholomorphic piece is not. We also reveal the component structure and find the deformation of the mass and the central charge., Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure

We study the quantum properties of two theories with a non-anticommutative (or nilpotent) chiral singlet deformation of N=(1,1) supersymmetry: the abelian model of a vector gauge multiplet and the model of a gauge multiplet interacting with a neutral hypermultiplet. In spite of the presence of a negative-mass-dimension coupling constant (deformation parameter), both theories are shown to be finite in the sense that the full effective action is one-loop exact and contains finitely many divergent terms, which vanish on-shell. The beta-function for the coupling constant is equal to zero. The divergencies can all be removed off shell by a redefinition of one of the two scalar fields of the gauge multiplet. These notable quantum properties are tightly related to the existence of a Seiberg-Witten-type transformation in both models., Comment: 1+31 pages, 2 figures, uses axodraw.sty; v2: a misprint corrected; v3: a reference added; v.4: minor changes in the text, references added, published version

The problem of construction of low-energy effective action in N=3 SYM theory is considered within the harmonic superspace (HSS) approach. The low-energy effective action is supposed to be a gauge- and scale-invariant functional in N=3 HSS reproducing the term F^4/\phi^4 in components. This functional is found as a scale-invariant generalization of the F^4-term in N=3 supersymmetric Born-Infeld action., Comment: 10 pages, talk given at QUARKS-2004, Pushkinskie Gory, Russia, May 24-30, 2004

Using the harmonic superspace approach we study the problem of low-energy effective action in N=3 SYM theory. The candidate effective action is a scale and \gamma_5-invariant functional in full N=3 superspace built out of N=3 off-shell superfield strengths. This action is constructed as N=3 superfield generalization of F^4/\phi^4 component term which is leading in the low-energy effective action and is simultaneously the first nontrivial term in scale invariant Born-Infeld action. All higher-order terms in the scale invariant Born-Infeld action are also shown to admit an off-shell superfield completion in N=3 harmonic superspace., Comment: 17 pages; v2: typos corrected

We consider the noncommutative hypermultiplet model within harmonic superspace approach. The 1-loop four-point contributions to the effective action of selfinteracting q-hypermultiplet are computed. This model has two coupling constants instead of a single one in commutative case. It is shown that both these coupling constants are generated by 1-loop quantum corrections in the model of q-hypermultiplet interacting with vector multiplet. The holomorphic effective action of q-hypermultiplet in external gauge superfield is calculated. For the fundamental representation there is no UV/IR-mixing and the holomorphic potential is a star-product generalization of a standard commutative one. For the adjoint representation of U(N) gauge group the leading contributions to the holomorphic effective action are given by the terms respecting for the UV/IR-mixing which are related to U(1) phase of U(N) group., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. v2: minor changes, refs added

We discuss a formulation of harmonic superspace approach for noncommuative N=2 supersymmetric field theories paying main attention on new features arising because of noncommutativity. We begin with the known notions of the harmonic superfield models and results obtained and consider how these notions and results are modified in the noncommutative case. The actions of basic N=2 models, like hypermultiplet and N=2 vector multiplet, are given in terms of unconstrained off-shell superfields on noncommutative harmonic superspace. We calculate the low-energy contributions to the effective actions of these models. The background field method in noncommutative harmonic superspace is developed and it is applied to study the 1-loop effective action in general noncommutative N=2 model and N=4 SYM theory., Comment: 23 pages, to appear in special issue of the journal Gravitation and Cosmology (G@C) devoted to Quantum Gravity, Unified Models and Strings to mark 100th anniversary of Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Ed. Prof. S.D. Odintsov. v2: minor changes, reference added, typos corrected