Supersymmetry on the lattice

We discuss the motivations, difficulties and progress in the study of supersymmetric lattice gauge theories focusing in particular on ${\cal N}=1$ and ${\cal N}=4$ super Yang-Mills in four dimensions. Brief reviews of the corresponding lattice formalisms are given and current results are presented and discussed. We conclude with a summary of the main aspects of current work and prospects for the future.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, Contribution to IJMPA special issue "Lattice gauge theory beyond QCD

Canonical simulations of supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills quantum mechanics

The fermion loop formulation naturally separates partition functions into their canonical sectors. Here we discuss various strategies to make use of this for supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills quantum mechanics obtained from dimensional reduction in various dimensions and present numerical results for the separate canonical sectors with fixed fermion numbers. We comment on potential problems due to the sign of the contributions from the fermions and due to flat directions.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Effective lattice Polyakov loop theory vs. full SU(3) Yang-Mills at finite temperature

A three-dimensional effective theory of Polyakov loops has recently been derived from Wilson's Yang-Mills lattice action by means of a strong coupling expansion. It is valid in the confined phase up to the deconfinement phase transition, for which it predicts the correct order and gives quantitative estimates for the critical coupling. In this work we study its predictive power for further observables like correlation functions and the equation of state. We find that the effective theory correctly reproduces qualitative features and symmetries of the full theory as the continuum is approached. Regarding quantitative predictions, we identify two classes of observables by numerical comparison as well as analytic calculations: correlation functions and their associated mass scales cannot be described accurately from a truncated effective theory, due to its inherently non-local nature involving long-range couplings. On the other hand, phase transitions and bulk thermodynamic quantities are accurately reproduced by the leading local part of the effective theory. In particular, the effective theory description is numerically superior when computing the equation of state at low temperatures or the properties of the phase transition.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Numerical corrections to the strong coupling effective Polyakov-line action for finite T Yang-Mills theory

We consider a three-dimensional effective theory of Polyakov lines derived previously from lattice Yang-Mills theory and QCD by means of a resummed strong coupling expansion. The effective theory is useful for investigations of the phase structure, with a sign problem mild enough to allow simulations also at finite density. In this work we present a numerical method to determine improved values for the effective couplings directly from correlators of the 4d Yang-Mills theory. For values of the gauge coupling up to the vicinity of the phase transition, the dominant short range effective coupling are well described by their corresponding strong coupling series. We provide numerical results also for the longer range interactions, Polyakov lines in higher representations as well as four-point interactions, and discuss the growing significance of non-local contributions as the lattice gets finer. Within this approach the critical Yang-Mills coupling $\beta_c$ is reproduced to better than one percent from a one-coupling effective theory on $N_\tau=4$ lattices while up to five couplings are needed on $N_\tau=8$ for the same accuracy.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure