Quantensupergravitation auf gekrümmten Raumzeiten

• Antragsteller: Dr. Thomas-Paul Hack
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Kern- und Elementarteilchenphysik, Quantenmechanik, Relativitätstheorie, Felder
• Förderung: Förderung von 2013 bis 2015
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 232156911

According to our current understanding, quantum field theories constitute an excellent description of elementary particles like electrons on a fundamental level. On the other hand, in Einstein's theory of gravitation -- general relativity -- our universe is aptly modelled by a curved spacetime. Thus, quantum field theories on curved spacetimes provide a holistic description of elementary particle physics in our universe, which is broader than the one inferred from quantum field theory in flat Minkowski spacetime and which moreover has the potential to model aspects of a quantum theory of gravity although such a theory is not fully developed to date. In the last fifteen years there has been considerable progress in the area of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. Particularly, the quantum field theories of the fields comprising the standard model of particle physics are well understood from a conceptual point view. However, more general theories like supergravity, which plays an important role both within particle physics and in the context of a quantum theory of gravity, have only been elaborated on an elementary level. Recently it has been shown by the applicant and collaborators that the simplest supergravity theory, in which only the gravitational field and the so-called gravitino field appear, can be formulated as a consistent free quantum theory on asymptotically flat spacetimes. The first aim of this project is to extend this result to more general supergravity theories which contain additional matter fields and to more interesting spacetime backgrounds such as asymptotically Robertson-Walker spacetimes and asymptotically Anti de Sitter spacetimes. The former backgrounds are of interest in cosmology, while the latter play an important role in the so-called AdS/CFT correspondence. Finally, the results obtained in the context of free supergravity theories and recent results on the quantization of interacting gauge theories in curved spacetimes by other authors shall be combined in order to analyze interacting supergravity theories and to construct them as consistent perturbative quantum field theories in curved spacetimes within the framework of the Batalin-Vilkovisky formalism.

• DFG-Verfahren: Forschungsstipendien
• Internationaler Bezug: Italien
• Gastgeber: Dr. Nicola Pinamonti