Anomalies At Different Energy Scales
Quantum anomalies were discovered via the process of renormalization, when some divergent integrals cannot be regularized in such a way that all the symmetries are preserved simultaneously. This is related to the physics at the UV (i.e. at high energies). However, due to Gerard 't Hooft's anomaly matching condition, any chiral anomaly can be described either by the UV degrees of freedom (those relevant at high energies) or by the IR degrees of freedom (those relevant at low energies). Thus one cannot cancel the anomaly by some UV completion of the theory — an anomalous symmetry is simply not a symmetry of the theory, even though classically it looks as if it is.
Read more about this topic: Anomaly (physics)
Famous quotes containing the words energy and/or scales:
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Love once
Tipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible,
Though mysteriously present, around somewhere.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)