How light can the Higgs be?

It is widely believed that, for a given Top mass, the Higgs mass has a lower bound: if m_Higgs is too small, the Higgs vacuum is unstable due to Top dynamics. From vacuum instability, the state-of-the-art calculation of the lower bound is close to the current experimental limit. Using non-perturbative simulations and large N calculations, we show that the vacuum is in fact never unstable. Instead, we investigate the existence of a new lower bound, based on the intrinsic cut-off of this trivial theory.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, uses espcrc2.sty, Lattice2003(higgs

The QCD String Spectrum and Conformal Field Theory

The low energy excitation spectrum of the critical Wilson surface is discussed between the roughening transition and the continuum limit of lattice QCD. The fine structure of the spectrum is interpreted within the framework of two-dimensional conformal field theory.Comment: Lattice2001 (confinement),3 pages,1 figure,uses espcrc2.st

Zero Point Energy of Renormalized Wilson Loops

The quark antiquark potential, and its associated zero point energy, can be extracted from lattice measurements of the Wilson loop. We discuss a unique prescription to renormalize the Wilson loop, for which the perturbative contribution to the zero point energy vanishes identically. A zero point energy can arise nonperturbatively, which we illustrate by considering effective string models. The nonperturbative contribution to the zero point energy vanishes in the Nambu model, but is nonzero when terms for extrinsic curvature are included. At one loop order, the nonperturbative contribution to the zero point energy is negative, regardless of the sign of the extrinsic curvature term.Comment: 14 pages, ReVTeX. Paper shortened, results unchange

The static hybrid potential in D dimensions at short distances

We compute the energy of a static hybrid, i.e. of a hybrid quarkonium with static quark and antiquark, at short distances in D=4,3 dimensions. The soft contribution to this energy is the static potential of a color octet quark-antiquark pair at short distances, which is known at two loops for arbitrary D. We have checked this expression employing thermal field theory methods. Using the effective field theory pNRQCD we calculate the ultrasoft contributions to the hybrid (and singlet) static energy at the two-loop level. We then present new results for the static hybrid energy/potential and the hybrid decay width in three and four dimensions. Finally we comment on the meaning of the perturbative results in two space-time dimensions, where the hybrid does not exist.Comment: 30 pages, 2 figure

Spin-String Interaction in QCD Strings

I consider the question of the interaction between a QCD string and the spin of a quark or an antiquark on whose worldline the string terminates. The problem is analysed from the point of view of a string representation for the expectation value of a Wilson loop for a spin-half particle. A string representation of the super Wilson loop is obtained starting from an effective string representation of a Wilson Loop. The action obtained in this manner is invariant under a worldline supersymmetry and has a boundary term which contains the spin-string interaction. For rectangular loops the spin-string interaction vanishes and there is no spin-spin term in the resulting heavy quark potential. On the other hand if an allowance is made for the finite intrinsic thickness of the flux-tube, by assuming that the spin-string interaction takes place not just at the boundary of the string world-sheet but extends to a distance of the order of the intrinsic thickness of the flux tube, then we do obtain a spin-spin interaction which falls as the fifth power of the distance. Such a term was previously suggested by Kogut and Parisi in the context of a flux-tube model of confinement.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure; Published version with added discussion and references in section

The Heavy Hybrid Spectrum from NRQCD and the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation

The spectrum of heavy-quark hybrids is studied in the leading Born-Oppenheimer (LBO) approximation and using leading-order NRQCD simulations with an improved gluon action on anisotropic lattices. The masses of four hybrid states are obtained from our simulations for lattice spacings 0.1 fm and 0.2 fm and are compared to the LBO predictions obtained using previously-determined glue-excited static potentials. The consistency of results from the two approaches reveals a compelling physical picture for heavy-quark hybrid states.Comment: LATTICE99(Heavy Quarks),3 pages,2 figures,uses espcrc2.st

High-Precision Thermodynamics and Hagedorn Density of States

We compute the entropy density of the confined phase of QCD without quarks on the lattice to very high accuracy. The results are compared to the entropy density of free glueballs, where we include all the known glueball states below the two-particle threshold. We find that an excellent, parameter-free description of the entropy density between 0.7Tc and Tc is obtained by extending the spectrum with the exponential spectrum of the closed bosonic string.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure