THE AFFINE N = 4 YANG-MILLS THEORY

An affine field theory may be constructed by gauging an affine algebra. The momentum integrals of the affine N = 4 Yang-Mills theory are ultraviolet finite but diverge because the sum over states is infinite. If the affine symmetry is broken by postulating a nonvanishing vacuum expectation value for that component of the scalar field lying in the L0 direction, then the theory acquires a linear mass spectrum. This broken theory is ultraviolet finite too, but the mass spectrum is unbounded. If it is also postulated that the mass spectrum has an upper bound (say, the Planck mass), then the resulting theory appears to be altogether finite. The influence of the exotic states has been estimated and, according to the proposed scenario, is negligible below energies at which gravitational interactions become important. The final effective theory has the symmetry of a compact Lie algebra augmented by the operator L0.