Moisture source and diet affect development and reproduction of Orius thripoborus and Orius naivashae, two predatory anthocorids from southern Africa

The effect of moisture source and diet on the development and reproduction of the pirate bugs, Orius thripoborus (Hesse) and Orius naivashae (Poppius) (Hemiptera: Anthocoridae) was examined in the laboratory. Both species had been collected in and around sugarcane fields in South Africa. Supplementing eggs of the flour moth Ephestia kuehniella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) with a green bean pod as a moisture source yielded better nymphal survival and faster development, as compared with free water encapsulated in Parafilm, suggesting that the predators may extract extra nutrients from the bean pod. The impact of two factitious foods and moist honey bee pollen on developmental and reproductive parameters of both predators was also investigated. The overall performance of both Orius species on E. kuehniella eggs and cysts of brine shrimp, Artemia franciscana Kellogg (Crustacea: Artemiidae) was better than on pollen. Nonetheless, a pollen diet alone allowed 66 and 78% of the nymphs of O. thripoborus and O. naivashae, respectively, to reach adulthood. Overall, developmental and reproductive performance of O. thripoborus on the tested diets was superior to that of O. naivashae. The implications of these findings for the mass production of these predators and their potential role in biological control programs in southern Africa are discussed

Non-Perturbative Green's Functions in Theories with Extended Superconformal Symmetry

The multiplets that occur in four dimensional rigidly supersymmetric theories can be described either by chiral superfields in Minkowski superspace or analytic superfields in harmonic superspace. The superconformal Ward identities for Green's functions of gauge invariant operators of these types are derived. It is shown that there are no chiral superconformal invariants. It is further shown that the Green's functions of analytic operators are severely restricted by the superconformal Ward when analyticity is taken into account.Comment: 17 pages, plain tex. Some conjectures that were in the original paper are clarifed in the light of more recent work to which we give references. See Note added for detail

3-Point Functions in N=4 Yang-Mills

Three-point functions of analytic (chiral primary) operators in N=4 Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions are calculated using the harmonic superspace formulation of this theory. In the case of the energy-momentum tensor multiplet anomaly considerations determine the coefficient. Analyticity in N=2 harmonic superspace is explicitly checked in a two-loop calculation.Comment: This file requires the feynman.tex macro Some references are adde

N=1 Superconformal Symmetry in Four Dimensional Quantum Field Theory

The implications of N=1 superconformal symmetry for four dimensional quantum field theories are studied. Superconformal covariant expressions for two and three point functions of quasi-primary superfields of arbitrary spin are found and connected with the operator product expansion. The general formulae are specialised to cases involving a scalar superfield L, which contains global symmetry currents, and the supercurrent, which contains the energy momentum tensor, and the consequences of superconformal Ward identities analysed. The three point function of L is shown to have unique completely antisymmetric or symmetric forms. In the latter case the superspace version of the axial anomaly equation is obtained. The three point function for the supercurrent is shown to have two linearly independent forms. A linear combination of the associated coefficients for the general expression is shown to be related to the scale of the supercurrent two point function through Ward identities. The coefficients are given for the two free field superconformal theories and are also connected with the parameters present in the supercurrent anomaly for supergravity backgrounds. Superconformal invariants, which are possible even in three point functions, are discussed.Comment: 53 pages, uses harvmac, revised version includes further corrections and minor additions, version to be publishe

Operator product expansions in four-dimensional superconformal field theories

The operator product expansion in four-dimensional superconformal field theory is discussed. The OPE takes a particularly simple form for chiral operators, in $N=1$ and $N=2$, and for analytic operators, in $N=2$ and $N=4$. It is argued that the Green's functions of such operators can be determined up to constants.Comment: 9 pages, late

Superconformal Symmetry, Correlation Functions and the Operator Product Expansion

Superconformal transformations are derived for the $\N=2,4 supermultiplets corresponding to the simplest chiral primary operators. These are applied to two, three and four point correlation functions. When$\N=4$, results are obtained for the three point function of various descendant operators, including the energy momentum tensor and SU(4) current. For both$\N=2$ or 4 superconformal identities are derived for the functions of the two conformal invariants appearing in the four point function for the chiral primary operator. These are solved in terms of a single arbitrary function of the two conformal invariants and one or three single variable functions. The results are applied to the operator product expansion using the exact formula for the contribution of an operator in the operator product expansion in four dimensions to a scalar four point function. Explicit expressions representing exactly the contribution of both long and possible short supermultiplets to the chiral primary four point function are obtained. These are applied to give the leading perturbative and large N corrections to the scale dimensions of long supermultiplets.Comment: 75 pages, plain TeX file using harvmac; revised version, minor corrections and extra referenc

Superconformal Ward Identities and N=2 Yang-Mills Theory

A reformulation of the superconformal Ward identities that combines all the superconformal currents and the associated parameters in one multiplet is given for theories with rigid N=1 or N=2 supersymmetry. This form of the Ward Identities is applied to spontaneously broken N=2 Yang-Mills theory and used to derive a condition on the low energy effective action. This condition is satisfied by the solution proposed by Seiberg and Witten.Comment: 25 pages, plain Te

Supersymmetry and Strongly Coupled Gauge Theories

I briefly review how supersymmetry helps in the extraction of exact nonperturbative information from field theories, and then discuss some open problems in strongly coupled gauge theories. (Talk given at ``30 Years of Supersymmetry'' symposium in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 15, 2000.)Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Partial non-renormalisation of the stress-tensor four-point function in N=4 SYM and AdS/CFT

We show that, although the correlator of four stress-tensor multiplets in N=4 SYM is known to have radiative corrections, certain linear combinations of its components are protected from perturbative renormalisation and remain at their free-field values. This result is valid for weak as well as for strong coupling and for any gauge group. Our argument uses Intriligator's insertion formula, and includes a proof that the possible contact term contributions cannot change the form of the amplitudes. Combining this new non-renormalisation theorem with Maldacena's conjecture allows us to make a prediction for the structure of the corresponding correlator in AdS supergravity. This is verified by first considerably simplifying the strong coupling expression obtained by recent supergravity calculations, and then showing that it does indeed exhibit the expected structure.Comment: 21 pages, no figure

Exact results in planar N=1 superconformal Yang-Mills theory

In the \beta-deformed N=4 supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory we study the class of operators O_J = Tr(\Phi_i^J \Phi_k), i\neq k and compute their exact anomalous dimensions for N,J\to\infty. This leads to a prediction for the masses of the corresponding states in the dual string theory sector. We test the exact formula perturbatively up to two loops. The consistency of the perturbative calculation with the exact result indicates that in the planar limit the one--loop condition g^2=h\bar{h} for superconformal invariance is indeed sufficient to insure the {\em exact} superconformal invariance of the theory. We present a direct proof of this point in perturbation theory. The O_J sector of this theory shares many similarities with the BMN sector of the N=4 theory in the large R--charge limit.Comment: LaTex, 14 pages, 3 figures; v2: minor corrections and one reference adde