253 research outputs found
Properties of the deconfining phase transition in SU(N) gauge theories
We extend our earlier investigation of the finite temperature deconfinement
transition in SU(N) gauge theories, with the emphasis on what happens as N->oo.
We calculate the latent heat in the continuum limit, and find the expected
quadratic in N behaviour at large N. We confirm that the phase transition,
which is second order for SU(2) and weakly first order for SU(3), becomes
robustly first order for N>3 and strengthens as N increases. As an aside, we
explain why the SU(2) specific heat shows no sign of any peak as T is varied
across what is supposedly a second order phase transition. We calculate the
effective string tension and electric gluon masses at T=Tc confirming the
discontinuous nature of the transition for N>2. We explicitly show that the
large-N `spatial' string tension does not vary with T for T<Tc and that it is
discontinuous at T=Tc. For T>Tc it increases as T-squared to a good
approximation, and the k-string tension ratios closely satisfy Casimir Scaling.
Within very small errors, we find a single Tc at which all the k-strings
deconfine, i.e. a step-by-step breaking of the relevant centre symmetry does
not occur. We calculate the interface tension but are unable to distinguish
between linear or quadratic in N variations, each of which can lead to a
striking but different N=oo deconfinement scenario. We remark on the location
of the bulk phase transition, which bounds the range of our large-N
calculations on the strong coupling side, and within whose hysteresis some of
our larger-N calculations are performed.Comment: 50 pages, 14 figure
Magnetic Z(N) symmetry in 2+1 dimensions
This review describes the role of magnetic symmetry in 2+1 dimensional gauge
theories. In confining theories without matter fields in fundamental
representation the magnetic symmetry is spontaneously broken. Under some mild
assumptions, the low-energy dynamics is determined universally by this
spontaneous breaking phenomenon. The degrees of freedom in the effective theory
are magnetic vortices. Their role in confining dynamics is similar to that
played by pions and sigma in the chiral symmetry breaking dynamics.
I give an explicit derivation of the effective theory in (2+1)-dimensional
weakly coupled confining models and argue that it remains qualitatively the
same in strongly coupled (2+1)-dimensional gluodynamics. Confinement in this
effective theory is a very simple classical statement about the long range
interaction between topological solitons, which follows (as a result of a
simple direct classical calculation) from the structure of the effective
Lagrangian. I show that if fundamentally charged dynamical fields are present
the magnetic symmetry becomes local rather than global. The modifications to
the effective low energy description in the case of heavy dynamical fundamental
matter are discussed. This effective lagrangian naturally yields a bag like
description of baryonic excitations. I also discuss the fate of the magnetic
symmetry in gauge theories with the Chern-Simons term
A study of the 't Hooft loop in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory
We study the behaviour of the spatial and temporal 't Hooft loop at zero and
finite temperature in the 4D SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, using a new numerical
method. In the deconfined phase , the spatial 't Hooft loop exhibits a
dual string tension, which vanishes at with 3D Ising-like critical
exponent.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Let
Domain walls and perturbation theory in high temperature gauge theory: SU(2) in 2+1 dimensions
We study the detailed properties of Z_2 domain walls in the deconfined high
temperature phase of the d=2+1 SU(2) gauge theory. These walls are studied both
by computer simulations of the lattice theory and by one-loop perturbative
calculations. The latter are carried out both in the continuum and on the
lattice. We find that leading order perturbation theory reproduces the detailed
properties of these domain walls remarkably accurately even at temperatures
where the effective dimensionless expansion parameter, g^2/T, is close to
unity. The quantities studied include the surface tension, the action density
profiles, roughening and the electric screening mass. It is only for the last
quantity that we find an exception to the precocious success of perturbation
theory. All this shows that, despite the presence of infrared divergences at
higher orders, high-T perturbation theory can be an accurate calculational
tool.Comment: 75 pages, LaTeX, 14 figure
Quark number susceptibilities from HTL-resummed thermodynamics
We compute analytically the diagonal quark number susceptibilities for a
quark-gluon plasma at finite temperature and zero chemical potential, and
compare with recent lattice results. The calculation uses the approximately
self-consistent resummation of hard thermal and dense loops that we have
developed previously. For temperatures between 1.5 to 5 , our results
follow the same trend as the lattice data, but exceed them in magnitude by
about 5-10%. We also compute the lowest order contribution, of order
, to the off-diagonal susceptibility. This
contribution, which is not a part of our self-consistent calculation, is
numerically small, but not small enough to be compatible with a recent lattice
simulation.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, uses elsart.cls; v2: minor corrections; v3: sign
in eq.(1) correcte
On the effective action of confining strings
We study the low-energy effective action on confining strings (in the
fundamental representation) in SU(N) gauge theories in D space-time dimensions.
We write this action in terms of the physical transverse fluctuations of the
string. We show that for any D, the four-derivative terms in the effective
action must exactly match the ones in the Nambu-Goto action, generalizing a
result of Luscher and Weisz for D=3. We then analyze the six-derivative terms,
and we show that some of these terms are constrained. For D=3 this uniquely
determines the effective action for closed strings to this order, while for D>3
one term is not uniquely determined by our considerations. This implies that
for D=3 the energy levels of a closed string of length L agree with the
Nambu-Goto result at least up to order 1/L^5. For any D we find that the
partition function of a long string on a torus is unaffected by the free
coefficient, so it is always equal to the Nambu-Goto partition function up to
six-derivative order. For a closed string of length L, this means that for D>3
its energy can, in principle, deviate from the Nambu-Goto result at order
1/L^5, but such deviations must always cancel in the computation of the
partition function. Next, we compute the effective action up to six-derivative
order for the special case of confining strings in weakly-curved holographic
backgrounds, at one-loop order (leading order in the curvature). Our
computation is general, and applies in particular to backgrounds like the
Witten background, the Maldacena-Nunez background, and the Klebanov-Strassler
background. We show that this effective action obeys all of the constraints we
derive, and in fact it precisely agrees with the Nambu-Goto action (the single
allowed deviation does not appear).Comment: 71 pages, 7 figures. v2: added reference, minor corrections. v3:
removed one term from the effective action since it is trivial. The
conclusions on the corrections to energy levels are unchanged, but the claim
that the holographic computation shows a deviation from Nambu-Goto was
modified. v4: added reference
Odderon and seven Pomerons: QCD Reggeon field theory from JIMWLK evolution
We reinterpret the JIMWLK/KLWMIJ evolution equation as the QCD Reggeon field
theory (RFT). The basic "quantum Reggeon field" in this theory is the unitary
matrix which represents the single gluon scattering matrix. We discuss the
peculiarities of the Hilbert space on which the RFT Hamiltonian acts. We
develop a perturbative expansion in the RFT framework, and find several
eigenstates of the zeroth order Hamiltonian. The zeroth order of this
perturbation preserves the number of - channel gluons. The eigenstates have
a natural interpretation in terms of the - channel exchanges. Studying the
single - channel gluon sector we find the eigenstates which include the
reggeized gluon and five other colored Reggeons. In the two ( - channel)
gluon sector we study only singlet color exchanges. We find five charge
conjugation even states. The bound state of two reggeized gluons is the
standard BFKL Pomeron. The intercepts of the other Pomerons in the large
limit are where is the intercept of the BFKL
Pomeron, but their coupling in perturbation theory is suppressed by at least
relative to the double BFKL Pomeron exchange. For the Pomeron
we find . We also find three charge
conjugation odd exchanges, one of which is the unit intercept
Bartels-Lipatov-Vacca Odderon, while another one has an interecept greater than
unity. We explain in what sense our calculation goes beyond the standard
BFKL/BKP calculation. We make additional comments and discuss open questions in
our approach.Comment: 58 pages, 4 figures, Extended version. To appear in JHE
A Planck-scale axion and SU(2) Yang-Mills dynamics: Present acceleration and the fate of the photon
From the time of CMB decoupling onwards we investigate cosmological evolution
subject to a strongly interacting SU(2) gauge theory of Yang-Mills scale
eV (masquerading as the factor of the SM at
present). The viability of this postulate is discussed in view of cosmological
and (astro)particle physics bounds. The gauge theory is coupled to a spatially
homogeneous and ultra-light (Planck-scale) axion field. As first pointed out by
Frieman et al., such an axion is a viable candidate for quintessence, i.e.
dynamical dark energy, being associated with today's cosmological acceleration.
A prediction of an upper limit for the duration of the
epoch stretching from the present to the point where the photon starts to be
Meissner massive is obtained: billion years.Comment: v3: consequences of an error in evolution equation for coupling
rectified, only a minimal change in physics results, two refs. adde
A remark on non-Abelian classical kinetic theory
It is known that non-Abelian classical kinetic theory reproduces the Hard
Thermal/Dense Loop (HTL/HDL) effective action of QCD, obtained after
integrating out the hardest momentum scales from the system, as well as the
first higher dimensional operator beyond the HTL/HDL level. We discuss here its
applicability at still higher orders, by comparing the exact classical
effective action obtained in the static limit, with the 1-loop quantum
effective potential. We remark that while correct types of operators arise, the
classical colour algebra reproduces correctly the prefactor of the 4-point
function only for matter in asymptotically high dimensional colour
representations.Comment: 6 page
NNLO hard-thermal-loop thermodynamics for QCD
We calculate the thermodynamic functions of a quark-gluon plasma for general
N_c and N_f to three-loop order using hard-thermal-loop perturbation theory. At
this order, all the ultraviolet divergences can be absorbed into
renormalizations of the vacuum, the HTL mass parameters, and the strong
coupling constant.We show that at three loops, the results for the pressure and
trace anomaly are in very good agreement with recent lattice data down to
temperatures T~2T_c.Comment: 8 pages, 2 fig
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