94 research outputs found
Vortex critical behavior at the de-confinement phase transition
The de-confinement phase transition in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory is revisited
in the vortex picture. Defining the world sheets of the confining vortices by
maximal center projection, the percolation properties of the vortex lines in
the hypercube consisting of the time axis and two spatial axis are studied.
Using the percolation cumulant, the temperature for the percolation transition
is seen to be in good agreement with the critical temperature of the thermal
transition. The finite size scaling function for the cumulant is obtained. The
critical index of the finite size scaling function is consistent with the index
of the 3D Ising model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 PS figures, using revtex4, paragraph and refs added, typo
correcte
Colour, copies and confinement
In this paper we construct a wide class of Gribov copies in Coulomb gauge
SU(2) gauge theory. Infinitesimal copies are studied in some detail and their
non-perturbative nature is made manifest. As an application it is shown that
the copies prevent a non-perturbative definition of colour charge.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures. Minor changes, two references added. Published
versio
Is the ground state of Yang-Mills theory Coulombic?
We study trial states modelling the heavy quark-antiquark ground state in
SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. A state describing the flux tube between quarks as a
thin string of glue is found to be a poor description of the continuum ground
state; the infinitesimal thickness of the string leads to UV artifacts which
suppress the overlap with the ground state. Contrastingly, a state which
surrounds the quarks with non-abelian Coulomb fields is found to have a good
overlap with the ground state for all charge separations. In fact, the overlap
increases as the lattice regulator is removed. This opens up the possibility
that the Coulomb state is the true ground state in the continuum limit.Comment: 10 pages, 9 .eps figure
On the infrared behaviour of Gluons and Ghosts in Ghost-Antighost symmetric gauges
To investigate the possibility of a ghost-antighost condensate the coupled
Dyson--Schwinger equations for the gluon and ghost propagators in Yang--Mills
theories are derived in general covariant gauges, including ghost-antighost
symmetric gauges. The infrared behaviour of these two-point functions is
studied in a bare-vertex truncation scheme which has proven to be successful in
Landau gauge. In all linear covariant gauges the same infrared behaviour as in
Landau gauge is found: The gluon propagator is infrared suppressed whereas the
ghost propagator is infrared enhanced. This infrared singular behaviour
provides indication against a ghost-antighost condensate. In the
ghost-antighost symmetric gauges we find that the infrared behaviour of the
gluon and ghost propagators cannot be determined when replacing all dressed
vertices by bare ones. The question of a BRST invariant dimension two
condensate remains to be further studied.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures, Version to be published in Phys. Rev.
Non-perturbative Propagators, Running Coupling and Dynamical Quark Mass of Landau gauge QCD
The coupled system of renormalized Dyson-Schwinger equations for the quark,
gluon and ghost propagators of Landau gauge QCD is solved within truncation
schemes. These employ bare as well as non-perturbative ansaetze for the
vertices such that the running coupling as well as the quark mass function are
independent of the renormalization point. The one-loop anomalous dimensions of
all propagators are reproduced. Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking is found,
the dynamically generated quark mass agrees well with phenomenological values
and corresponding results from lattice calculations. The effects of unquenching
the system are small. In particular the infrared behavior of the ghost and
gluon dressing functions found in previous studies is almost unchanged as long
as the number of light flavors is smaller than four.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures, version to be published by Phys. Rev.
Numerical Study of the Ghost-Gluon Vertex in Landau gauge
We present a numerical study of the ghost-gluon vertex and of the
corresponding renormalization function \widetilde{Z}_1(p^2) in minimal Landau
gauge for SU(2) lattice gauge theory. Data were obtained for three different
lattice volumes (V = 4^4, 8^4, 16^4) and for three lattice couplings \beta =
2.2, 2.3, 2.4. Gribov-copy effects have been analyzed using the so-called
smeared gauge fixing. We also consider two different sets of momenta (orbits)
in order to check for possible effects due to the breaking of rotational
symmetry. The vertex has been evaluated at the asymmetric point (0;p,-p) in
momentum-subtraction scheme. We find that \widetilde{Z}_1(p^2) is approximately
constant and equal to 1, at least for momenta p > ~ 1 GeV. This constitutes a
nonperturbative verification of the so-called nonrenormalization of the Landau
ghost-gluon vertex. Finally, we use our data to evaluate the running coupling
constant \alpha_s(p^2).Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, 9 tables, using axodraw.sty; minor modifications
in the abstract, introduction and conclusion
Probing the ground state in gauge theories
We consider two very different models of the flux tube linking two heavy
quarks: a string linking the matter fields and a Coulombic description of two
separately gauge invariant charges. We compare how close they are to the
unknown true ground state in compact U(1) and the SU(2) Higgs model.
Simulations in compact U(1) show that the string description is better in the
confined phase but the Coulombic description is best in the deconfined phase;
the last result is shown to agree with analytical calculations. Surprisingly in
the non-abelian theory the Coulombic description is better in both the Higgs
and confined phases. This indicates a significant difference in the width of
the flux tubes in the two theories.Comment: 13 pages, 10 .eps figures. V2: conclusions extende
Thermodynamics of two-colour QCD and the Nambu Jona-Lasinio model
We investigate two-flavour and two-colour QCD at finite temperature and
chemical potential in comparison with a corresponding Nambu and Jona-Lasinio
model. By minimizing the thermodynamic potential of the system, we confirm that
a second order phase transition occurs at a value of the chemical potential
equal to half the mass of the chiral Goldstone mode. For chemical potentials
beyond this value the scalar diquarks undergo Bose condensation and the diquark
condensate is nonzero. We evaluate the behaviour of the chiral condensate, the
diquark condensate, the baryon charge density and the masses of scalar diquark,
antidiquark and pion, as functions of the chemical potential. Very good
agreement is found with lattice QCD (N_c=2) results. We also compare with a
model based on leading-order chiral effective field theory.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figure
Electron-Positron Pair Production in Space- or Time-Dependent Electric Fields
Treating the production of electron and positron pairs by a strong electric
field from the vacuum as a quantum tunneling process we derive, in
semiclassical approximation, a general expression for the pair production rate
in a -dependent electric field pointing in the -direction. We also
allow for a smoothly varying magnetic field parallel to . The result is
applied to a confined field for , a
semi-confined field for , and a linearly increasing
field . The boundary effects of the confined fields on
pair-production rates are exhibited. A simple variable change in all formulas
leads to results for electric fields depending on time rather than space.
In addition, we discuss tunneling processes in which empty atomic bound
states are spontaneously filled by negative-energy electrons from the vacuum
under positron emission. In particular, we calculate the rate at which the
atomic levels of a bare nucleus of finite size and large
are filled by spontaneous pair creation.Comment: 33 pages and 9 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev.
Casimir Effect on the Worldline
We develop a method to compute the Casimir effect for arbitrary geometries.
The method is based on the string-inspired worldline approach to quantum field
theory and its numerical realization with Monte-Carlo techniques. Concentrating
on Casimir forces between rigid bodies induced by a fluctuating scalar field,
we test our method with the parallel-plate configuration. For the
experimentally relevant sphere-plate configuration, we study curvature effects
quantitatively and perform a comparison with the ``proximity force
approximation'', which is the standard approximation technique. Sizable
curvature effects are found for a distance-to-curvature-radius ratio of a/R >~
0.02. Our method is embedded in renormalizable quantum field theory with a
controlled treatment of the UV divergencies. As a technical by-product, we
develop various efficient algorithms for generating closed-loop ensembles with
Gaussian distribution.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, Sect. 2.1 more self-contained, improved data
for Fig. 6, minor corrections, new Refs, version to be published in JHE
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