A luminosity monitor for the A4 parity violation experiment at MAMI

A water Cherenkov luminosity monitor system with associated electronics has been developed for the A4 parity violation experiment at MAMI. The detector system measures the luminosity of the hydrogen target hit by the MAMI electron beam and monitors the stability of the liquid hydrogen target. Both is required for the precise study of the count rate asymmetries in the scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons on unpolarized protons. Any helicity correlated fluctuation of the target density leads to false asymmetries. The performance of the luminosity monitor, investigated in about 2000 hours with electron beam, and the results of its application in the A4 experiment are presented.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, submitted to NIM

Two infrared Yang-Mills solutions in stochastic quantization and in an effective action formalism

Three decades of work on the quantum field equations of pure Yang-Mills theory have distilled two families of solutions in Landau gauge. Both coincide for high (Euclidean) momentum with known perturbation theory, and both predict an infrared suppressed transverse gluon propagator, but whereas the solution known as "scaling" features an infrared power law for the gluon and ghost propagators, the "massive" solution rather describes the gluon as a vector boson that features a finite Debye screening mass. In this work we examine the gauge dependence of these solutions by adopting stochastic quantization. What we find, in four dimensions and in a rainbow approximation, is that stochastic quantization supports both solutions in Landau gauge but the scaling solution abruptly disappears when the parameter controlling the drift force is separated from zero (soft gauge-fixing), recovering only the perturbative propagators; the massive solution seems to survive the extension outside Landau gauge. These results are consistent with the scaling solution being related to the existence of a Gribov horizon, with the massive one being more general. We also examine the effective action in Faddeev-Popov quantization that generates the rainbow and we find, for a bare vertex approximation, that the the massive-type solutions minimise the quantum effective action.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures. Change of title to reflect version accepted for publicatio

Color-superconductivity in the strong-coupling regime of Landau gauge QCD

The chirally unbroken and the superconducting 2SC and CFL phases are investigated in the chiral limit within a Dyson-Schwinger approach for the quark propagator in QCD. The hierarchy of Green's functions is truncated such that at vanishing density known results for the vacuum and at asymptotically high densities the corresponding weak-coupling expressions are recovered. The anomalous dimensions of the gap functions are analytically calculated. Based on the quark propagator the phase structure is studied, and results for the gap functions, occupation numbers, coherence lengths and pressure differences are given and compared with the corresponding expressions in the weak-coupling regime. At moderate chemical potentials the quasiparticle pairing gaps are several times larger than the extrapolated weak-coupling results.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures; v2: one reference adde

Gluons at finite temperature in Landau gauge Yang--Mills theory

The infrared behavior of Yang-Mills theory at finite temperature provides access to the role of confinement. In this review recent results on this topic from lattice calculations and especially Dyson-Schwinger studies are discussed. These indicate persistence of a residual confinement even in the high-temperature phase. The confinement mechanism is very similar to the one in the vacuum for the chromomagnetic sector. In the chromoelectric sector screening occurs at the soft scale g^2T, although not leading to a perturbative behavior.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, invited brief review for MPL

The No-Pole Condition in Landau gauge: Properties of the Gribov Ghost Form-Factor and a Constraint on the 2d Gluon Propagator

We study the Landau-gauge Gribov ghost form-factor sigma(p^2) for SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in the d-dimensional case. We find a qualitatively different behavior for d=3,4 w.r.t. d=2. In particular, considering any (sufficiently regular) gluon propagator D(p^2) and the one-loop-corrected ghost propagator G(p^2), we prove in the 2d case that sigma(p^2) blows up in the infrared limit p -> 0 as -D(0)\ln(p^2). Thus, for d=2, the no-pole condition \sigma(p^2) 0) can be satisfied only if D(0) = 0. On the contrary, in d=3 and 4, sigma(p^2) is finite also if D(0) > 0. The same results are obtained by evaluating G(p^2) explicitly at one loop, using fitting forms for D(p^2) that describe well the numerical data of D(p^2) in d=2,3,4 in the SU(2) case. These evaluations also show that, if one considers the coupling constant g^2 as a free parameter, G(p^2) admits a one-parameter family of behaviors (labelled by g^2), in agreement with Boucaud et al. In this case the condition sigma(0) <= 1 implies g^2 <= g^2_c, where g^2_c is a 'critical' value. Moreover, a free-like G(p^2) in the infrared limit is obtained for any value of g^2 < g^2_c, while for g^2 = g^2_c one finds an infrared-enhanced G(p^2). Finally, we analyze the Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE) for sigma(p^2) and show that, for infrared-finite ghost-gluon vertices, one can bound sigma(p^2). Using these bounds we find again that only in the d=2 case does one need to impose D(0) = 0 in order to satisfy the no-pole condition. The d=2 result is also supported by an analysis of the DSE using a spectral representation for G(p^2). Thus, if the no-pole condition is imposed, solving the d=2 DSE cannot lead to a massive behavior for D(p^2). These results apply to any Gribov copy inside the so-called first Gribov horizon, i.e. the 2d result D(0) = 0 is not affected by Gribov noise. These findings are also in agreement with lattice data.Comment: 40 pages, 2 .eps figure

More on Gribov copies and propagators in Landau-gauge Yang-Mills theory

Fixing a gauge in the non-perturbative domain of Yang-Mills theory is a non-trivial problem due to the presence of Gribov copies. In particular, there are different gauges in the non-perturbative regime which all correspond to the same definition of a gauge in the perturbative domain. Gauge-dependent correlation functions may differ in these gauges. Two such gauges are the minimal and absolute Landau gauge, both corresponding to the perturbative Landau gauge. These, and their numerical implementation, are described and presented in detail. Other choices will also be discussed. This investigation is performed, using numerical lattice gauge theory calculations, by comparing the propagators of gluons and ghosts for the minimal Landau gauge and the absolute Landau gauge in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. It is found that the propagators are different in the far infrared and even at energy scales of the order of half a GeV. In particular, also the finite-volume effects are modified. This is observed in two and three dimensions. Some remarks on the four-dimensional case are provided as well.Comment: 23 pages, 16 figures, 6 tables; various changes throughout most of the paper; extended discussion on different possibilities to define the Landau gauge and connection to existing scenarios; in v3: Minor changes, error in eq. (3) & (4) corrected, version to appear in PR

Chiral and deconfinement transition from correlation functions: SU(2) vs. SU(3)

We study a gauge invariant order parameter for deconfinement and the chiral condensate in SU(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills theory in the vicinity of the deconfinement phase transition using the Landau gauge quark and gluon propagators. We determine the gluon propagator from lattice calculations and the quark propagator from its Dyson-Schwinger equation, using the gluon propagator as input. The critical temperature and a deconfinement order parameter are extracted from the gluon propagator and from the dependency of the quark propagator on the temporal boundary conditions. The chiral transition is determined using the quark condensate as order parameter. We investigate whether and how a difference in the chiral and deconfinement transition between SU(2) and SU(3) is manifest.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures. For clarification one paragraph and two references added in the introduction and two sentences at the end of the first and last paragraph of the summary. Appeared in EPJ

Accessing directly the properties of fundamental scalars in the confinement and Higgs phase

The properties of elementary particles are encoded in their respective propagators and interaction vertices. For a SU(2) gauge theory coupled to a doublet of fundamental complex scalars these propagators are determined in both the Higgs phase and the confinement phase and compared to the Yang-Mills case, using lattice gauge theory. Since the propagators are gauge-dependent, this is done in the Landau limit of 't Hooft gauge, permitting to also determine the ghost propagator. It is found that neither the gauge boson nor the scalar differ qualitatively in the different cases. In particular, the gauge boson acquires a screening mass, and the scalar's screening mass is larger than the renormalized mass. Only the ghost propagator shows a significant change. Furthermore, indications are found that the consequences of the residual non-perturbative gauge freedom due to Gribov copies could be different in the confinement and the Higgs phase.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; v2: one minor error corrected; v3: one appendix on systematic uncertainties added and some minor changes, version to appear in EPJ

On Electron Transport in ZrB12, ZrB2 and MgB2

We report on measurements of the temperature dependence of resistivity, $\rho(T)$, for single crystal samples of ZrB$_{12}$, ZrB$_{2}$ and polycrystalline samples of MgB$_{2}$. It is shown that cluster compound ZrB$_{12}$ behaves like a simple metal in the normal state, with a typical Bloch -- Gr\"uneisen $\rho(T)$ dependence. However, the resistive Debye temperature, $T_{R}=300 K$, is three times smaller than $T_{D}$ obtained from specific heat data. We observe the $T^{2}$ term in $\rho(T)$ of these borides, which could be interpreted as an indication of strong electron-electron interaction. Although the $\rho (T)$ dependence of ZrB$_{12}$ reveals a sharp superconductive transition at $T_{c}=6.0 K$, no superconductivity was observed for single crystal samples of ZrB$_{2}$ down to $1.3 K$.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

A first look at Landau-gauge propagators in G2 Yang-Mills theory

G_2 Yang--Mills theory is an interesting laboratory to investigate non-perturbative effects. On one hand, no conventional quark confinement via a linearly rising potential is present. On the other hand, its thermodynamic properties are similar to ordinary SU(N) Yang--Mills theory. Finally, it has been conjectured that gluons are removed from the physical spectrum in the same way as in SU(N) Yang--Mills theory. The last claim will be explored by determining the Landau-gauge ghost and gluon propagators, as well as the Faddeev--Popov operator eigenspectrum, in G_2 lattice gauge theory in two and three dimensions. The results are found to agree qualitatively with the SU(2) and SU(3) case. Therefore, the conjecture that Yang--Mills theories with different gauge groups are qualitatively similar on the level of their Landau gauge Green's functions is supported.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables; in v2: One figure added, added statistics, extended discussion on some topics, various minor change