Zero-Mode Problem on the Light Front

Abstract

A series of lectures are given to discuss the zero-mode problem on the light-front (LF) quantization with special emphasis on the peculiar realization of the trivial vacuum, the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) and the Lorentz invariance. We discuss Discrete Light-Cone Quantization (DLCQ) which was first introduced by Maskawa and Yamawaki (MY). Following MY, we present canonical formalism of DLCQ and the zero-mode constraint through which the zero mode can actually be solved away in terms of other modes,thus establishing the trivial vacuum. Due to this trivial vacuum, existence of the massless Nambu-Goldstone (NG) boson coupled to the current is guaranteed by the non-conserved charge such that Q |0> = 0 and dot{Q} ne 0. The SSB (NG phase) in DLCQ can be realized on the trivial vacuum only when an explicit symmetry-breaking mass of the NG boson m_{pi} is introduced so that the NG-boson zero mode integrated over the LF exhibits singular behavior sim 1/m_{pi}^2 in such a way that dot{Q} ne 0 in the symmetric limit m_{pi} -> 0. We also demonstrate this realization more explicitly in the linear sigma model where the role of zero-mode constraint is clarified. We fur ther point out, in disagreement with Wilson et al., that for SSB in the continuum LF theory, the trivial vacuum collapses due to the special nature of the zero mode as the accumulating point P^+ -> 0, in sharp contrast to DLCQ. Finally, we discuss the no-go theorem of Nakanishi and Yamawaki, which forbids exact LF r estriction of the field theory. Thus DLCQ as well as any other regularization on the exact LF has no Lorentz-invariant limit as the theory itself, although the Lorentz-invariant limit can be realized on the c-number quantity like S matrix which has no reference to the fixed LF.

63 pages, LaTex, 3 EPS figures, Lectures given at 10 th Annual Summer School and Symposium on Nuclear Physics (NUSS 97), ``QCD, Lightcone Physics and Hadron Phenomenology'', Seoul, Korea, June 23-28, 1997, a minor correction on cover page

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