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arXiv · hep-th/9805104

Quark Potentials in the Higgs Phase of Large N Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theories

J. A. Minahan·N. P. Warner
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Abstract

We compute, in the large N limit, the quark potential for ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory broken to $SU(N_1) \times SU(N_2)$. At short distances the quarks see only the unbroken gauge symmetry and have an attractive potential that falls off as 1/L. At longer distances the interquark interaction is sensitive to the symmetry breaking, and other QCD states appear. These states correspond to combinations of the quark-antiquark pair with some number of W-particles. If there is one or more W-particles then this state is unstable because of the coulomb interaction between the W-particles and between the W's and the quarks. As L is decreased the W-particles delocalize and these coulomb branches merge onto a branch with a linear potential. The quarks on this branch see the unbroken gauge group, but the flux tube is unstable to the production of W-particles.

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J. A. Minahan, N. P. Warner. 1998-05-18. Quark Potentials in the Higgs Phase of Large N Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theories. https://doi.org/10.1088/1126-6708%2F1998%2F06%2F005

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