Spectral asymmetry and supersymmetry

Frank Ferrari

Published 2002-07-08, updated 2002-10-17Version 2

Fractional charges, and in particular the spectral asymmetry eta of certain Dirac operators, can appear in the central charge of supersymmetric field theories. This yields unexpected analyticity constraints on eta from which classic results can be recovered in an elegant way. The method could also be applied in the context of string theory.