Glueballs and the Pomeron

We present our latest results on the glueball spectrum of SU(N) gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions for spins ranging from 0 to 6 inclusive, as well as preliminary results for SU(3) in 3+1 dimensions. Simple glueball models and the relation of the even-spin spectrum to the 'Pomeron' are discussed.Comment: LAT03 proceedings (spectrum), 3 pages, 3 figures, talk by H.Meye

High Spin Glueballs from the Lattice

We discuss the principles underlying higher spin glueball calculations on the lattice. For that purpose, we develop numerical techniques to rotate Wilson loops by arbitrary angles in lattice gauge theories close to the continuum. As a first application, we compute the glueball spectrum of the SU(2) gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions for both parities and for spins ranging from 0 up to 4 inclusive. We measure glueball angular wave functions directly, decomposing them in Fourier modes and extrapolating the Fourier coefficients to the continuum. This allows a reliable labelling of the continuum states and gives insight into the way rotation symmetry is recovered. As one of our results, we demonstrate that the D=2+1 SU(2) glueball conventionally labelled as J^P = 0^- is in fact 4^- and that the lightest ``J=1'' state has, in fact, spin 3.Comment: Minor changes in the text; the spin 4 glueball mass is taken further out in Euclidean time at higher beta values. 41 pages, 20 figure

Effective sigma models and lattice Ward identities

We perform a lattice analysis of the Faddeev-Niemi effective action conjectured to describe the low-energy sector of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. To this end we generate an ensemble of unit vector fields ("color spins") n from the Wilson action. The ensemble does not show long-range order but exhibits a mass gap of the order of 1 GeV. From the distribution of color spins we reconstruct approximate effective actions by means of exact lattice Schwinger-Dyson and Ward identities ("inverse Monte Carlo"). We show that the generated ensemble cannot be recovered from a Faddeev-Niemi action, modified in a minimal way by adding an explicit symmetry-breaking term to avoid the appearance of Goldstone modes.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, JHEP styl

Glueballs and k-strings in SU(N) gauge theories : calculations with improved operators

We test a variety of blocking and smearing algorithms for constructing glueball and string wave-functionals, and find some with much improved overlaps onto the lightest states. We use these algorithms to obtain improved results on the tensions of k-strings in SU(4), SU(6), and SU(8) gauge theories. We emphasise the major systematic errors that still need to be controlled in calculations of heavier k-strings, and perform calculations in SU(4) on an anisotropic lattice in a bid to minimise one of these. All these results point to the k-string tensions lying part-way between the `MQCD' and `Casimir Scaling' conjectures, with the power in 1/N of the leading correction lying in [1,2]. We also obtain some evidence for the presence of quasi-stable strings in calculations that do not use sources, and observe some near-degeneracies between (excited) strings in different representations. We also calculate the lightest glueball masses for N=2, ...,8, and extrapolate to N=infinity, obtaining results compatible with earlier work. We show that the N=infinity factorisation of the Euclidean correlators that are used in such mass calculations does not make the masses any less calculable at large N.Comment: 49 pages, 15 figure

QCD dynamics in a constant chromomagnetic field

We investigate the phase transition in full QCD with two flavors of staggered fermions in presence of a constant abelian chromomagnetic field. We find that the critical temperature depends on the strength of the chromomagnetic field and that the deconfined phase extends to very low temperatures for strong enough fields. As in the case of zero external field, a single transition is detected, within statistical uncertainties, where both deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration take place. We also find that the chiral condensate increases with the strength of the chromomagnetic field.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Static quark potential and effective string corrections in the (2+1)-d SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

We report on a very accurate measurement of the static quark potential in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in (2+1) dimensions in order to study the corrections to the linear behaviour. We perform numerical simulations at zero and finite temperature comparing our results with the corrections given by the effective string picture in these two regimes. We also check for universal features discussing our results together with those recently published for the (2+1)-d Z(2) and SU(3) pure gauge theories.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figure

Spin Two Glueball Mass and Glueball Regge Trajectory from Supergravity

We calculate the mass of the lowest lying spin two glueball in N=1 super Yang-Mills from the dual Klebanov-Strassler background. We show that the Regge trajectory obtained is linear; the 0++, 1-- and 2++ states lie on a line of slope 0.23 -measured in units of the conifold deformation. We also compare mass ratios with lattice data and find agreement within one standard deviation.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

Macroscopic Strings and "Quirks" at Colliders

We consider extensions of the standard model containing additional heavy particles ("quirks") charged under a new unbroken non-abelian gauge group as well as the standard model. We assume that the quirk mass m is in the phenomenologically interesting range 100 GeV--TeV, and that the new gauge group gets strong at a scale Lambda < m. In this case breaking of strings is exponentially suppressed, and quirk production results in strings that are long compared to 1/Lambda. The existence of these long stable strings leads to highly exotic events at colliders. For 100 eV < Lambda < keV the strings are macroscopic, giving rise to events with two separated quirk tracks with measurable curvature toward each other due to the string interaction. For keV < Lambda < MeV the typical strings are mesoscopic: too small to resolve in the detector, but large compared to atomic scales. In this case, the bound state appears as a single particle, but its mass is the invariant mass of a quirk pair, which has an event-by-event distribution. For MeV < Lambda < m the strings are microscopic, and the quirks annihilate promptly within the detector. For colored quirks, this can lead to hadronic fireball events with 10^3 hadrons with energy of order GeV emitted in conjunction with hard decay products from the final annihilation.Comment: Added discussion of photon-jet decay, fixed minor typo

Color Dynamics in External Fields

We investigate the vacuum dynamics of U(1), SU(2), and SU(3) lattice gauge theories in presence of external (chromo)magnetic fields, both in (3+1) and (2+1) dimensions. We find that the critical coupling for the phase transition in compact U(1) gauge theory is independent of the strength of an external magnetic field. On the other hand we find that, both in (3+1) and (2+1) dimensions, the deconfinement temperature for SU(2) and SU(3) gauge systems in a constant abelian chromomagnetic field decreases when the strength of the applied field increases. We conclude that the dependence of the deconfinement temperature on the strength of an external constant chromomagnetic field is a peculiar feature of non abelian gauge theories and could be useful to get insight into color confinement.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figure

Plaquette expectation value and gluon condensate in three dimensions

In three dimensions, the gluon condensate of pure SU(3) gauge theory has ultraviolet divergences up to 4-loop level only. By subtracting the corresponding terms from lattice measurements of the plaquette expectation value and extrapolating to the continuum limit, we extract the finite part of the gluon condensate in lattice regularization. Through a change of regularization scheme to MSbar and (inverse) dimensional reduction, this result would determine the first non-perturbative coefficient in the weak-coupling expansion of hot QCD pressure.Comment: 11 page