Applications of supersymmetric quantum mechanics

摘要

The central subject of the thesis is the spinning particle model. It is a theory describing in a pseudoclassical way a Dirac particle which moves in an arbitrary d-dimensional space-time.In addition to space-time coordinates, the particle has spin which is described in terms of anti-commuting coordinates. Along the particles world line there is a super-symmetry between the fermionic spin variables and the bosonic position coordinates of the particle. It is straightforward to quantisize this model giving rise to supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The model does indeed describe a particle with spin 1/2, like a quark or an electron. There are two aspects of this model which is studied extensively in this thesis. First, to investigate the symmetries of the spinning particle on an arbitrary Riemannian manifold. Second, attention is drawn to the application of supersymmetric quantum mechanical models (i.e. spinning particle models) defined on an arbitrary Riemannian manifold to the calculation of anomalies in quantum field theories defined on the same manifold. (author). 49 refs.; 7 figs. (Atomindex citation 24:028072)