arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A. Di Giacomo.
A disorder parameter detecting dual superconductivity of the vacuum is measured across the chiral phase transition in full QCD with two flavours of dynamical staggered fermions. The observed behaviour is similar to the quenched case.
The existing evidence for dual superconductivity as mechanism of color confinement is reviewed. We also discuss what is known on the dual excitations, which produce confinement by condensation, and what are the open problems
This review is aimed to demonstrate the basics and use of formalism of gauge-invariant nonlocal correlators in nonabelian gauge theories. Many phenomenologically interesting nonperturbative aspects of gluodynamics and QCD can be described in terms of correlators of the nonabelian field strength tensors. It is explained how the properties of correlator ensemble encode the structure of QCD vacuum and determine different nonperturbative observables. It is argued that in gluodynamics and QCD the dominant role is played by the lowest nontrivial two-point correlator (Gaussian dominance). Lattice measurements of field correlators are discussed. Important for the formalism theoretical tools, such as nonabelian Stokes theorem, background perturbation theory, cluster expansion, as well as phenomenological applications to the heavy quarkonium dynamics and QCD phase transition are reviewed.
The status of our understanding of colour confinement is reviewed.
It is demonstrated that monopole condensation in the confined phase of SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theories is independent of the specific Abelian projection used to define the monopoles. Hence the dual excitations which condense in the vacuum to produce confinement must have magnetic U(1) charge in all the Abelian projections. Some physical implications of this result are discussed.
We compute, in SU(3) pure gauge theory, the vacuum expectation value (vev) of the operator which creates a $Z_3$ vortex wrapping the lattice through periodic boundary conditions (dual Polyakov line). The technique used is the same already tested in the SU(2) case. The dual Polyakov line proves to be a good disorder parameter for confinement, and has a similar behaviour to the monopole condensate. The new features which characterise the construction of the disorder operator in SU(3) are emphasised.
Lattice studies of monopole condensation in QCD are based on the construction of a disorder parameter, a creation operator of monopoles which is written in terms of the gauge fields. This procedure is expected to work for any system which presents duality. We check it on the Ising model in 2d, which is exactly solvable. The output is an amusing exercise in statistical mechanics.
We present a study of the topological susceptibility $χ$ on the lattice for full QCD with 2 and 4 flavours of staggered fermions at zero and finite temperature T. We find that $χ$ presents a sharp drop across the deconfinement transition. We also study the dependence of $χ$ on the quark mass at T=0: we have no conclusive evidence for the expected chiral behaviour.
In the study of QCD dynamics, C* boundary conditions are physically relevant in certain cases. In this paper we study the implementation of these boundary conditions in the lattice formulation of full QCD with staggered fermions. In particular, we show that the usual even-odd partition trick to avoid the redoubling of the fermion matrix is still valid in this case. We give an explicit implementation of these boundary conditions for the Hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm.
We study the topological properties of full QCD with four flavours of dynamical staggered fermions. In particular the topological susceptibility is measured and the problem of the determination of its first derivative is discussed.
We study dual superconductivity of the ground state of SU(2) gauge theory, in connection with confinement. We do that measuring on the lattice a disorder parameter describing condensation of monopoles. Confinement appears as a transition to dual superconductor, independent of the abelian projection defining monopoles. Some speculations are made on the existence of a more appropriate disorder parameter. A similar study for SU(3) is presented in a companion paper.
The dual superconductivity of the vacuum in SU(3) gauge theory is investigated by constructing a disorder parameter which signals monopole condensation in various abelian projections and by studying numerically on the lattice its behaviour at finite temperature. We find that the vacuum is a dual superconductor with respect to each U(1) of the residual gauge group after abelian projection independently of the abelian projection chosen. Like in the SU(2) case (discussed in a companion paper) a finite size scaling analysis enables us to extract the indices of the phase transition and our analysis is consistent with independent determinations.
We investigate the topological susceptibility of the QCD vacuum with two flavours of dynamical staggered fermions on the lattice both at zero and finite temperature. At zero temperature we study the dependence of the signal on the fermion mass and at finite temperature we analyze the behaviour across the phase transition.
The guiding lines of lattice investigations on colour confinement are reviewed, together with recent results.
A review is presented of what we understand of colour confinement in QCD. Lattice formulation provides evidence that QCD vacuum is a dual superconductor: the chromoelectric field of a $q\bar q$ pair is constrained by dual Meissner effect into a dual Abrikosov flux tube and the static potential energy is proportional to the distance.
The status of our understanding of confinement is reviewed. The evidence from lattice is that monopole condensation, or dual superconductivity, is at work. Confinement is an order-disorder transition. Different monopole species look equivalent, indicating that the symmetry of the disordered phase is more interesting that we understand.
The Heisenberg model in 3d is studied from a dual point of view. It is shown that it can have vortex configurations, carrying a conserved charge(U(1) symmetry). Vortices condens in the disordered phase. A disorder parameter $\leftangleμ\rightangle$ is defined dual to the magnetization $\leftangle\vec n\rightangle$, which signals condensation of vortices, i.e. spontaneous breaking of the dual U(1) symmetry. This study sheds light on the procedure known as abelian projection in non abelian gauge theories.
We study, by numerical simulations on a lattice, the behaviour of the gauge-invariant nonlocal quark condensates in the QCD vacuum both in the quenched approximation and with four flavours of dynamical staggered fermions. The correlation length of the condensate is determined to be roughly twice as big as in the case of the gluon field strength correlators.