ISSN 0029-3865 BR0040497 CBPF - CENTRO BRASILEIRO PE PESQUISAS FISICAS Rio de Janeiro Notas de Fisica CBPF-NF-058/99 November 1999 New Concepts in Particle Physics from Solution of an Old Problem Bert Schroer 31/43 CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico New Concepts in Particle Physics from Solution of an Old Problem Bert Schroer Institut fur Theoretische Physik FU-Berlin, Arnimallee 14, 14195 Berlin, Germany presently: CBPF, Rua Dr. Xavier Sigaud, 22290-180 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
[email protected] July 1999 Abstract Recent ideas on modular localization in local quantum physics are used to clarify the relation between on- and off-shell quantities in particle physics; in particular the relation between on-shell crossing symmetry and off-shell Einstein causality. Among the collateral results of this new non- perturbative approach are profound relations between crossing symmetry of particle physics and Hawking-Unruh like thermal aspects (KMS property, entropy attached to horizons) of quantum mat- ter behind causal horizons which hitherto were more related with Killing horizons in curved spacetime than with localization aspects in Minkowski space particle physics. The scope of this framework is wide and ranges from providing a conceptual basis for the d=l+l bootstrap-formfactor program for factorizable d=l+l models to a decomposition theory of QFT's in terms of a finite collection of unitarily equivalent chiral conformal theories placed a specified relative position within a common Hilbert space (in d=l+l a holographic relation and in higher dimensions more like a scanning). Al- though different from string theory, some of its concepts originated as string theory in the aftermath of the ill-fated S-matrix bootstrap approch of the 6O'es.