Gauge-invariant nonlocal quark condensates in QCD

We study, by numerical simulations on a lattice, the behaviour of the gauge-invariant nonlocal quark condensates in the QCD vacuum both in the quenched approximation and with four flavours of dynamical staggered fermions. The correlation length of the condensate is determined to be roughly twice as big as in the case of the gluon field strength correlators.Comment: LATTICE98(confine

Dual superconducting properties of the QCD vacuum

A consistent description of the confining QCD vacuum as a dual superconductor requires a determination of fundamental parameters such as the superconductor correlation length $\xi$ and the field penetration depth $\lambda$, which determine whether the superconductor is of type I or type II. We illustrate preliminary results of a lattice determination of $\xi$ for the case of pure Yang-Mills with two colors, obtained by measuring the temporal correlator of a disorder parameter detecting dual superconductivity.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, talk presented at QCD05 (Montpellier) 4-9 July 200

Topology in QCD with 4 flavours of dynamical fermions

We study the topological properties of full QCD with four flavours of dynamical staggered fermions. In particular the topological susceptibility is measured and the problem of the determination of its first derivative is discussed.Comment: LATTICE99(Topology and Confinement). 3 pages, contains espcrc2.sty fil

Renormalization and topological susceptibility on the lattice: SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

The renormalization functions involved in the determination of the topological susceptibility in the SU(2) lattice gauge theory are extracted by direct measurements, without relying on perturbation theory. The determination exploits the phenomenon of critical slowing down to allow the separation of perturbative and non-perturbative effects. The results are in good agreement with perturbative computations.Comment: 12 pages + 4 figures (PostScript); report no. IFUP-TH 10/9

Magnetic charge superselection in the deconfined phase of Yang-Mills theory

The vacuum expectation value of an operator carrying magnetic charge is studied numerically for temperatures above the deconfinement temperature in SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theory. By analyzing its finite size behaviour, this is found to be exactly zero in the thermodynamical limit for any T > T_c whenever the magnetic charge of the operator is different from zero. These results show that magnetic charge is superselected in the hot phase of quenched QCD.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, revtex

Order, Disorder and Confinement

Studying the order of the chiral transition for $N_f=2$ is of fundamental importance to understand the mechanism of color confinement. We present results of a numerical investigation on the order of the transition by use of a novel strategy in finite size scaling analysis. The specific heat and a number of susceptibilities are compared with the possible critical behaviours. A second order transition in the O(4) and O(2) universality classes are excluded. Substantial evidence emerges for a first order transition. Results are in agreement with those found by studying the scaling properties of a disorder parameter related to the dual superconductivity mechanism of color confinement.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures. Talk given at the International Workshop on Quantum Chromodynamics: QCD@Work 2005, Conversano, Italy, 16-20 June 200

Gauge-invariant quark-antiquark nonlocal condensates in lattice QCD

We study, by numerical simulations on a lattice, the behaviour of the gauge-invariant quark-antiquark nonlocal condensates in the QCD vacuum with dynamical fermions. A determination is also done in the quenched approximation and the results are compared with the full-QCD case. The fermionic correlation length is extracted and compared with the analogous gluonic quantity.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX file, + 6 PS figure

Topological susceptibility at zero and finite TT in SU(3) Yang-Mills theory

We determine the topological susceptibility $\chi$ at T=0 in pure SU(3) gauge theory and its behaviour at finite $T$ across the deconfining transition. We use an improved topological charge density operator. $\chi$ drops sharply by one order of magnitude at the deconfining temperature $T_c$.Comment: Recently appeared erratum added as an "Appendix" to the original pape

Topological properties of QCD with two dynamical fermions

We investigate the topological susceptibility of the QCD vacuum with two flavours of dynamical staggered fermions on the lattice both at zero and finite temperature. At zero temperature we study the dependence of the signal on the fermion mass and at finite temperature we analyze the behaviour across the phase transition.Comment: LATTICE99(finite temperature and density). 3 pages, contains espcrc2.sty fil

Topological susceptibility through the deconfining phase transition

We present a measurement of the topological susceptibility in SU(3) Yang-Mills theory through the deconfinement phase transition. An improved operator is used for the topological charge density. A drop by an order of magnitude is observed from the confined to the deconfined phase.Comment: Talk presented at LATTICE96(topology). 3 pages, 2 postscript figures, uses espcrc2.sty include