Lattice Landau gauge via Stereographic Projection

The complete cancellation of Gribov copies and the Neuberger 0/0 problem of lattice BRST can be avoided in modified lattice Landau gauge. In compact U(1), where the problem is a lattice artifact, there remain to be Gribov copies but their number is exponentially reduced. Moreover, there is no cancellation of copies there as the sign of the Faddeev-Popov determinant is positive. Applied to the maximal Abelian subgroup this avoids the perfect cancellation amongst the remaining Gribov copies for SU(N) also. In addition, based on a definition of gauge fields on the lattice as stereographically-projected link variables, it provides a framework for gauge fixed Monte-Carlo simulations. This will include all Gribov copies in the spirit of BRST. Their average is not zero, as demonstrated explicitly in simple models. This might resolve present discrepancies between gauge-fixed lattice and continuum studies of QCD Green's functions.Comment: 5 pages, talk presented at the 8th Conference Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, September 1-6, 2008, Mainz, German

Modified Lattice Landau Gauge

We propose a modified lattice Landau gauge based on stereographically projecting the link variables on the circle S^1 -> R for compact U(1) or the 3-sphere S^3 -> R^3 for SU(2) before imposing the Landau gauge condition. This can reduce the number of Gribov copies exponentially and solves the Gribov problem in compact U(1) where it is a lattice artifact. Applied to the maximal Abelian subgroup this might be just enough to avoid the perfect cancellation amongst the Gribov copies in a lattice BRST formulation for SU(N), and thus to avoid the Neuberger 0/0 problem. The continuum limit of the Landau gauge remains unchanged.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, for the proceedings of the XXV International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 30 - August 4 2007, Regensburg, German

What the Infrared Behavior of QCD Green Functions can tell us about Confinement in the Covariant Gauge

We review aspects of confinement in the covariant and local description of QCD and discuss to what extend our present knowledge of the infrared behavior of QCD Green functions can support this description. In particular, we emphasize: the positivity violations of transverse gluon and quark states, the Kugo-Ojima confinement criterion, and the conditions necessary to avoid the decomposition property for colored clusters. We summarize how these issues relate to the infrared behavior of the propagators in Landau gauge QCD as extracted from solutions to truncated Dyson-Schwinger equations and lattice simulations.Comment: 10 Pages, 7 Figures, LaTeX2.09, invited talk presented by L. v. Smekal at ``Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum IV'', Vienna, July 4-8, 200

The Infrared Behavior of QCD Propagators in Landau Gauge

Some features of the solutions to the truncated Dyson-Schwinger equations(DSEs) for the propagators of QCD in Landau gauge are summarized. In particular, the Kugo-Ojima confinement criterion is realized, and positivity of transverse gluons is manifestly violated in these solutions. In Landau gauge, the gluon-ghost vertex function offers a convenient possibility to define a nonperturbative running coupling. The infrared fixed point obtained from this coupling which determines the 2-point interactions of color-octet quark currents implies the existence of unphysical massless states which are necessary to escape the cluster decomposition of colored clusters. The gluon and ghost propagators, and the nonperturbative running coupling, are compared to recent lattice simulations. A significant deviation of the running coupling from the infrared behavior extracted in simulations of 3-point functions is attributed to an inconsistency of asymmetric subtraction schemes due to a consequence of the Kugo-Ojima criterion: infrared enhanced ghosts.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, talk given by R.A. at ``Quark Nuclear Physics 2000'', Adelaide, Feb. 21 - 25, 200

The Infrared Behavior of QCD Green's Functions - Confinement, Dynamical Symmetry Breaking, and Hadrons as Relativistic Bound States

Recent studies of QCD Green's functions and their applications in hadronic physics are reviewed. We briefly discuss the issues of gauge fixing, BRS invariance and positivity. Evidence for the violation of positivity by quarks and transverse gluons in the covariant gauge is collected, and it is argued that this is one manifestation of confinement. We summarise the derivation of the Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSEs) of QED and QCD. The influence of instantons on DSEs in a 2-dimensional model is mentioned. Solutions for the Green's functions in QED in 2+1 and 3+1 dimensions provide tests of various schemes to truncate DSEs. We discuss possible extensions to QCD and their limitations. Truncation schemes for DSEs of QCD are discussed in the axial gauge and in the Landau gauge. We review the available results from a systematic non-perturbative expansion scheme established for Landau gauge QCD. Comparisons to related lattice results, where available, are presented. The applications of QCD Green's functions to hadron physics are summarized. Properties of ground state mesons are discussed on the basis of the Bethe-Salpeter equation for quarks and antiquarks. The Goldstone nature of pseudoscalar mesons and mechanisms of diquark confinement are reviewed. We discuss some properties of ground state baryons based on their description as Bethe-Salpeter/Faddeev bound states of quark-diquark correlations in the quantum field theory of confined quarks and gluons.Comment: 212 Pages, LaTeX2e, submitted to Physics Reports; typos corrected, improvements on grammar and style, references adde

Hybrid Monte-Carlo simulation of interacting tight-binding model of graphene

In this work, results are presented of Hybrid-Monte-Carlo simulations of the tight-binding Hamiltonian of graphene, coupled to an instantaneous long-range two-body potential which is modeled by a Hubbard-Stratonovich auxiliary field. We present an investigation of the spontaneous breaking of the sublattice symmetry, which corresponds to a phase transition from a conducting to an insulating phase and which occurs when the effective fine-structure constant $\alpha$ of the system crosses above a certain threshold $\alpha_C$. Qualitative comparisons to earlier works on the subject (which used larger system sizes and higher statistics) are made and it is established that $\alpha_C$ is of a plausible magnitude in our simulations. Also, we discuss differences between simulations using compact and non-compact variants of the Hubbard field and present a quantitative comparison of distinct discretization schemes of the Euclidean time-like dimension in the Fermion operator.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, presented at the 31st International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2013), 29 July - 3 August 2013, Mainz, German