# Two disjoint aspects of the deformation programme: quantizing Nambu mechanics; singleton physics1footnote 11footnote 1This very short survey is dedicated to the memory of our good friend Ryszard Ra̧czka, to whom the April 1998 meeting in Łódź “Particles, Fields and Gravitation”, was dedicated. Except for this footnote the e-print is the August 1998 version to be published by AIP Press in the Proceedings entitled Particles, Fields and Gravitation, edited by Jakub Rembieliński.

## Abstract

We present briefly the deformation philosophy and indicate, with references, how it was applied to the quantization of Nambu mechanics and to particle physics in anti De Sitter space.

Deformation theory of algebraic structures has proved itself extremely efficient and very much so in the last two decades. In this short contribution (in fact, a long abstract with references) we shall indicate two recent examples of new applications of the deformation philosophy. But before doing so let us present the essence of our deformation philosophy Fl82 .

Physical theories have their domain of applicability mainly depending on the velocities and distances concerned. But the passage from one domain (of velocities and distances) to another one does not appear in an uncontrolled way. Rather, a new fundamental constant enters the modified formalism and the attached structures (symmetries, observables, states, etc.) deform the initial structure; namely, we have a new structure which in the limit when the new parameter goes to zero coincides with the old formalism. In other words, to detect new formalisms we have to study deformations of the algebraic structures attached to a given formalism.

The only question is in which category we perform this research of deformations. Usually physics is rather conservative and if we start e.g. with the category of associative or Lie algebras, we tend to deform in this category. However recently examples were given in the literature of generalizations of this principle. For instance quantum groups Dr86  are in fact deformations of Hopf algebras. Other examples include more general deformations like in the quantization of Nambu mechanics or in non Abelian deformations Pi97 . Here we shall point out two recent developments based on our deformation philosophy.

The first example has to do with the generalization of classical mechanics suggested by Nambu in 1973 Nb73  and the recent attempts to quantize it. The question there, which has to do with generalized deformations, is of general interest. Apparently Nambu mechanics presents a new alternative to classical mechanics (see however BF75 ). Does it possess a quantum version attached to it and what price do we have to pay to have such a version? The question is partially answered in DFST97 ; DF97  and a detailed presentation can be found in FDS97 .

The second example has to do with recent developments in field theories based on supergravity, conformal field theories, compactification of higher dimensional field theories, string theory, M-theory, $`p`$-branes, etc. for which people rediscovered the efficiency and advantages of anti De Sitter theories (which are stable deformations of Poincaré field theories in the category of Lie groups; see however FHT93  for quantum groups, at roots of unity in that case). There are many reasons for the advantages of anti De Sitter (often abbreviated as AdS) theories among which we can mention that AdS field theory admits an invariant natural infrared regularization of the theories in question and that the kinematical spectra (angular momentum and energy) are naturally discrete. But in addition AdS theories have a great bonus: the existence of singleton representations discovered by Dirac Dir  for $`\mathrm{SO}(3,2)`$, corresponding to a “square root” of AdS massless representations. We discovered that fact around 20 years ago FF78  and developed rather extensively its physical consequences in the following years FHT93 ; AF78 ; AFFS81 ; BFFH85 ; BFFS82 ; BFH83 ; FF88 ; FFxx ; FF98 ; FFG86 ; FFS88 ; FaF80 ; Fr88 ; FH87 ; HFF92 .

Singleton theories are topological in the sense that the corresponding singleton field theories live naturally on the boundary at infinity of the De Sitter bulk (boundary which has one dimension less than the bulk). They are new types of gauge theories which in addition permit to consider massless particles, e.g. the photon, as dynamically composite AdS particles FF88 ; FF98 ; FFS88 . Some of the beautiful properties of singleton theories can be extended to higher dimensions, and this is the main point of the recent huge interest in these AdS theories, which touched a large variety of aspects of AdS physics. More explicitly, in several of the recent articles among which we can mention Ma97 ; Wi98 ; FFr98 ; FFZ98 ; FZ98 ; FKPZ ; FMMR ; SS98 , the new picture permits to study duality between CFT on the boundary at infinity and the corresponding AdS theory in the bulk. That duality, which has also interesting dynamical aspects in it, utilizes among other things the great notational simplifications permitted by singleton physics.

PACS (1998): 11.15.-q,11.25.Hf,11.30.Pb, 12.20.-m,12.60.Rc, 14.80.-j, 04.62.+v,04.65.+e

MSC (1991): 81T20, 81T70, 81R05, 83E50, 83E30, 17A42, 17A30.