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Andre Sternbeck

Publications and source records attributed to Andre Sternbeck.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Strong-coupling study of the Gribov ambiguity in lattice Landau gauge

We study the strong-coupling limit beta=0 of lattice SU(2) Landau gauge Yang-Mills theory. In this limit the lattice spacing is infinite, and thus all momenta in physical units are infinitesimally small. Hence, the infrared behavior can be assessed at sufficiently large lattice momenta. Our results show that at the lattice volumes used here, the Gribov ambiguity has an enormous effect on the ghost propagator in all dimensions. This underlines the severity of the Gribov problem and calls for refined studies also at finite beta. In turn, the gluon propagator only mildly depends on the Gribov ambiguity.

hep-lat↗

Infrared exponents and the strong-coupling limit in lattice Landau gauge

We study the gluon and ghost propagators of lattice Landau gauge in the strong-coupling limit beta=0 in pure SU(2) lattice gauge theory to find evidence of the conformal infrared behavior of these propagators as predicted by a variety of functional continuum methods for asymptotically small momenta $q^2 \ll Λ_\mathrm{QCD}^2$. In the strong-coupling limit, this same behavior is obtained for the larger values of a^2q^2 (in units of the lattice spacing a), where it is otherwise swamped by the gauge field dynamics. Deviations for a^2q^2 < 1 are well parameterized by a transverse gluon mass $\propto 1/a$. Perhaps unexpectedly, these deviations are thus no finite-volume effect but persist in the infinite-volume limit. They furthermore depend on the definition of gauge fields on the lattice, while the asymptotic conformal behavior does not. We also comment on a misinterpretation of our results by Cucchieri and Mendes in Phys. Rev. D81 (2010) 016005.

hep-lat↗

Lattice Landau Gauge and Algebraic Geometry

Finding the global minimum of a multivariate function efficiently is a fundamental yet difficult problem in many branches of theoretical physics and chemistry. However, we observe that there are many physical systems for which the extremizing equations have polynomial-like non-linearity. This allows the use of Algebraic Geometry techniques to solve these equations completely. The global minimum can then straightforwardly be found by the second derivative test. As a warm-up example, here we study lattice Landau gauge for compact U(1) and propose two methods to solve the corresponding gauge-fixing equations. In a first step, we obtain all Gribov copies on one and two dimensional lattices. For simple 3x3 systems their number can already be of the order of thousands. We anticipate that the computational and numerical algebraic geometry methods employed have far-reaching implications beyond the simple but illustrating examples discussed here.

hep-lat↗

The strong coupling and its running to four loops in a minimal MOM scheme

We introduce the minimal momentum subtraction (MiniMOM) scheme for QCD. Its definition allows the strong coupling to be fixed solely through a determination of the gluon and ghost propagators. In Landau gauge this scheme has been implicit in the early studies of these propagators, especially in relation to their non-perturbative behaviour in the infrared and the associated infrared fixed-point. Here we concentrate on its perturbative use. We give the explicit perturbative definition of the scheme and the relation of its beta-function and running coupling to the MSbar scheme up to 4-loop order in general covariant gauges. We also demonstrate, by considering a selection of N_f=3 examples, that the apparent convergence of the relevant perturbative series can in some (though not all) cases be significantly improved by re-expanding the MSbar coupling version of this series in terms of the MiniMOM coupling, making the MiniMOM coupling also of potential interest in certain phenomenological applications.

hep-ph↗

The strong-coupling limit of lattice Landau gauge

We report on our recent study of the gluon and ghost propagators of pure SU(2) minimal lattice Landau gauge in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, we find evidence of the conformal infrared behaviour of these propagators as predicted by functional continuum methods. However, in the strong-coupling limit this happens for lattice momenta with a^2q^2>1, in units of the lattice spacing a. Deviations from conformal scaling for a^2q^2<1 are well parameterised by a transverse gluon mass. A comparison of various lattice definitions of gauge potentials, all equivalent in the continuum limit, shows that (a) both the critical exponent and coupling can be extracted unambiguously from the high-momentum data in the strong-coupling limit, in good agreement with the continuum predictions; but that on the other hand (b) the massive branch depends on the definition of lattice gluon fields and is thus not unambiguously defined. We demonstrate that this ambiguity is also present in the low-momentum region for commonly used values of the lattice coupling in SU(2).

hep-lat↗

Lattice Landau gauge via Stereographic Projection

The complete cancellation of Gribov copies and the Neuberger 0/0 problem of lattice BRST can be avoided in modified lattice Landau gauge. In compact U(1), where the problem is a lattice artifact, there remain to be Gribov copies but their number is exponentially reduced. Moreover, there is no cancellation of copies there as the sign of the Faddeev-Popov determinant is positive. Applied to the maximal Abelian subgroup this avoids the perfect cancellation amongst the remaining Gribov copies for SU(N) also. In addition, based on a definition of gauge fields on the lattice as stereographically-projected link variables, it provides a framework for gauge fixed Monte-Carlo simulations. This will include all Gribov copies in the spirit of BRST. Their average is not zero, as demonstrated explicitly in simple models. This might resolve present discrepancies between gauge-fixed lattice and continuum studies of QCD Green's functions.

hep-th↗

The strong-coupling limit of minimal lattice Landau gauge

We study the gluon and ghost propagators of lattice Landau gauge in the strong coupling limit $β= 0$ in pure SU(2) lattice gauge theory to find evidence of the conformal infrared behaviour of these propagators as predicted by a variety of functional continuum methods for asymptotically small momenta $q^2 \ll Λ_\mathrm{QCD}^2$. In the strong-coupling limit, this same behaviour is obtained for the larger values of $a^2q^2$ (in units of the lattice spacing $a$), where it is otherwise swamped by the gauge field dynamics. Deviations for $a^2 q^2 < 1 $ are well parametrized by a transverse gluon mass $\propto 1/a$. Perhaps unexpectedly, these deviations are thus no finite-volume effect but persist in the infinite-volume limit. They furthermore depend on the definition of gauge fields on the lattice, while the asymptotic conformal behaviour does not.

hep-lat↗

Center vortices and the quark propagator in SU(2) gauge theory

We study the behavior of the AsqTad quark propagator in Landau gauge on quenched SU(2) gauge configurations under the removal of center vortices. In contrast to recent results in SU(3), we clearly see the infrared enhancement of the mass function disappear if center vortices are removed, a sign of the intimate relation between center vortices and chiral symmetry breaking in SU(2) gauge-field theory. These results provide a benchmark with which to interpret the SU(3) results. In addition, we consider vortex-only configurations. On those, the quark dressing function behaves roughly as on the full configurations, and the mass function picks up an almost linear momentum dependence.

hep-lat↗

Preconditioning Maximal Center Gauge with Stout Link Smearing in SU(3)

Center vortices are studied in SU(3) gauge theory using Maximal Center Gauge (MCG) fixing. Stout link smearing and over-improved stout link smearing are used to construct a preconditioning gauge field transformation, applied to the original gauge field before fixing to MCG. We find that preconditioning successfully achieves higher gauge fixing maxima. We observe a reduction in the number of identified vortices when preconditioning is used, and also a reduction in the vortex-only string tension.

hep-lat↗

Coulomb gauge studies of SU(3) Yang-Mills theory on the lattice

We study the infrared behaviour of lattice SU(3) Yang-Mills theory in Coulomb gauge in terms of the ghost propagator, the Coulomb potential and the transversal and the time-time component of the equal-time gluon propagator. In particular, we focus on the Gribov problem and its impact on the observables. We observe that the simulated annealing method is advantageous for fixing the Coulomb gauge in large volumes. We study finite size and discretization effects. While finite size effects can be controlled by the cone cut, and the ghost propagator and the Coulomb potential become scaling functions with the cylinder cut, the equal-time gluon propagator does not show scaling in the considered range of the inverse coupling constant. The ghost propagator is infrared enhanced. The Coulomb potential is now extended to considerably lower momenta and shows a more complicated infrared regime. The Coulomb string tension satisfies Zwanziger's inequality, but its estimate can be considered only preliminary because of the systematic Gribov effect that is particularly strong for the Coulomb potential.

hep-lat↗

Scaling behavior and positivity violation of the gluon propagator in full QCD

The Landau-gauge gluon propagator is studied using the coarse and fine dynamical MILC configurations. The effects of dynamical quarks are clearly visible and lead to a reduction of the nonperturbative infrared enhancement relative to the quenched case. Lattice spacing effects are studied and found to be small. The gluon spectral function is shown to clearly violate positivity in both quenched and full QCD.

hep-lat↗

Modified Lattice Landau Gauge

We propose a modified lattice Landau gauge based on stereographically projecting the link variables on the circle S^1 -> R for compact U(1) or the 3-sphere S^3 -> R^3 for SU(2) before imposing the Landau gauge condition. This can reduce the number of Gribov copies exponentially and solves the Gribov problem in compact U(1) where it is a lattice artifact. Applied to the maximal Abelian subgroup this might be just enough to avoid the perfect cancellation amongst the Gribov copies in a lattice BRST formulation for SU(N), and thus to avoid the Neuberger 0/0 problem. The continuum limit of the Landau gauge remains unchanged.

hep-lat↗

The infrared behavior of lattice QCD Green's functions

We investigate different aspects of lattice QCD in Landau gauge using Monte Carlo simulations. In particular, we focus on the low momentum behavior of gluon and ghost propagators. The gauge group is SU(3). Different systematic effects on the gluon and ghost propagators are studied, e.g. the dependence on the choice of Gribov copies or the influence of dynamical Wilson fermions. We compare our data with results from studies of Dyson-Schwinger equations for the gluon and ghost propagators. We demonstrate that the infrared behavior of both propagators, as found in this thesis, is consistent with different criteria for confinement. However, the running coupling constant, given as a renormalization-group-invariant combination of the gluon and ghost dressing functions, does not expose a finite infrared fixed point. We also report on a first nonperturbative computation of the SU(3) ghost-gluon-vertex renormalization constant and on an investigation of the spectral properties of the Faddeev-Popov operator.

hep-lat↗