arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M. N. Chernodub.
We calculate the topological susceptibility of the Yang-Mills vacuum using the field correlator method. Our estimate for the SU(3) gauge group, χ^{1/4} = 196(7) MeV, is in a very good agreement with the results of recent numerical simulations of the Yang-Mills theory on the lattice.
We investigate non-perturbative features of a three-dimensional Abelian Higgs model with singly- and doubly-charged scalar fields coupled to a single compact Abelian gauge field. The model is pretending to describe various planar systems of strongly correlated electrons such as high-Tc superconductivity in the overdoped regime and exotic materials possessing excitations with fractionalized quantum numbers. The complicated phase structure of the model is studied thoroughly using numerical tools and analytical arguments. In the three-dimensional space of coupling parameters we identify the Fermi liquid, the spin gap, the superconductor and the strange metallic phases. The behavior of three kinds of topological defects -- holon and spinon vortices and monopoles - is explored in various phases. We also observe a new effect, the strong enhancement of the phase transition strength reflected in a lower order of the transition: at sufficiently strong gauge coupling the two second order phase transitions -- corresponding to spinon-pair and holon condensation lines - join partially in the phase diagram and become a first order phase transition in that region. The last observation may have an analogue in Quantum Chromodynamics at non-zero temperature and finite baryon density. We argue that at sufficiently large baryon density the finite-temperature transition between the (3-flavor paired) color superconducting phase and the quark-gluon plasma phases should be much stronger compared with the transition between 2-flavor paired and 3-flavor paired superconducting phases.
Magnetic strings are defined as infinitely thin surfaces which are closed in the vacuum and can be open on an external monopole trajectory (that is, defined by 't Hooft loop). We review briefly lattice data on the magnetic strings which refer mostly to SU(2) and SU(3) pure Yang-Mills theories and concentrate on implications of the strings for the Yang-Mills plasma. We argue that magnetic strings might be a liquid component of the Yang-Mills plasma and suggest tests of this hypothesis.
Confinement in non-Abelian gauge theories is commonly ascribed to percolation of magnetic monopoles, or strings in the vacuum. At the deconfinement phase transition the condensed magnetic degrees of freedom are released into gluon plasma as thermal magnetic monopoles. We point out that within the percolation picture lattice simulations can be used to estimate the monopole content of the gluon plasma. We show that right above the critical temperature the monopole density remains a constant function of temperature, as for a liquid, and then grows, like for a gas.
We study the embedded QCD monopoles (``quark monopoles'') using low-lying eigenmodes of the overlap Dirac operator in zero- and finite-temperature SU(2) Yang-Mills theory on the lattice. These monopoles correspond to the gauge-invariant hedgehogs in the quark-antiquark condensates. The monopoles were suggested to be agents of the chiral symmetry restoration since their cores should suppress the chiral condensate. We study numerically the scalar, axial and chirally invariant definitions of the embedded monopoles and show that the monopole densities are in fact globally anti-correlated with the density of the Dirac eigenmodes. We observe, that the embedded monopoles corresponding to low-lying Dirac eigenvalues are dense in the chirally invariant (high temperature) phase and dilute in the chirally broken (low temperature) phase. We find that the scaling of the scalar and axial monopole densities towards the continuum limit is similar to the scaling of the string-like objects while the chirally invariant monopoles scale as membranes. The excess of gluon energy at monopole positions reveals that the embedded QCD monopole possesses a gluonic core, which is, however, empty at the very center of the monopole.
We suggest that the high temperature superconductivity in cuprate compounds may emerge due to interaction between copper-oxygen layers mediated by in-plane plasmons. The strength of the interaction is determined by the c-axis geometry and by the ab-plane optical properties. Without making reference to any particular in-plane mechanism of superconductivity, we show that the interlayer interaction favors spontaneous appearance of the superconductivity in the layers. At a qualitative level the model describes correctly the dependence of the transition temperature on the interlayer distance, and on the number of adjacent layers in multilayered homologous compounds. Moreover, the model has a potential to explain (i) a mismatch between the optimal doping levels for critical temperature and superconducting density and (ii) a universal scaling relation between the dc-conductivity, the superfluid density, and the superconducting transition temperature.
We suggest that the gauge-invariant hedgehoglike structures in the Wilson loops are physically interesting degrees of freedom in the Yang--Mills theory. The trajectories of these ``hedgehog loops'' are closed curves corresponding to center-valued (untraced) Wilson loops and are characterized by the center charge and winding number. We show numerically in the SU(2) Yang--Mills theory that the density of hedgehog structures in the thermal Wilson--Polyakov line is very sensitive to the finite-temperature phase transition. The (additively normalized) hedgehog line density behaves like an order parameter: the density is almost independent of the temperature in the confinement phase and changes substantially as the system enters the deconfinement phase. In particular, our results suggest that the (static) hedgehog lines may be relevant degrees of freedom around the deconfinement transition and thus affect evolution of the quark-gluon plasma in high-energy heavy-ion collisions.
The separation between the spin and the charge converts the quantum mechanical Pauli Hamiltonian into the Hamiltonian of the non-Abelian Georgi-Glashow model, notorious for its magnetic monopoles and confinement. The independent spin and charge fluctuations both lead to the Faddeev model, suggesting the existence of a deep duality structure and indicating that the fundamental carriers of spin and charge are knotted solitons.
We propose a nonlocal definition of a gauge-invariant object in terms of the Wilson loop operator in a non--Abelian gauge theory. The trajectory is a closed curve defined by an (untraced) Wilson loop which takes its value in the center of the color group. We show that definition shares basic features with the gauge-dependent 't Hooft construction of Abelian monopoles in Yang-Mills theories. The chromoelectric components of the gluon field have a hedgehog-like behavior in the vicinity of the object. This feature is dual to the structure of the 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles which possesses a hedgehog in the magnetic sector. A relation to color confinement and lattice implementation of the proposed construction are discussed.
We study the phase structure of a three dimensional Abelian Higgs model with singly- and doubly-charged scalar fields coupled to a compact Abelian gauge field. The model is pretending to describe systems of strongly correlated electrons such as high-Tc superconductivity in overdoped regime and exotic phases supporting excitations with fractionalized quantum numbers. We identify the Fermi liquid, the spin gap, the superconductor and the strange metallic phases in which densities and properties of holon and spinon vortices and monopoles are explored. The phase diagram in the 3D coupling space is predicted. We show that at sufficiently strong gauge coupling the spinon-pair and holon condensation transitions merge together and become, unexpectedly, first order.
We present results obtained in QCD with two flavors of non-perturbatively improved Wilson fermions at finite temperature on $16^3 \times 8$ and $24^3 \times 10$ lattices. We determine the transition temperature in the range of quark masses $0.6<m_π/m_ρ<0.8$ at lattice spacing a$\approx$0.1 fm and extrapolate the transition temperature to the continuum and to the chiral limits. We also discuss the order of phase transition.
We study a three dimensional Abelian Higgs model containing singly- and doubly-charged scalar fields coupled to a compact Abelian gauge field in the London limit. The model attracts interest because of its relevance to high-Tc superconductors with charge 1 holon and charge 2 spinon-pair fields. It contains two types of vortices carrying magnetic flux and one type of instanton-like monopoles. Using thermodynamic and topological observables we present the phase diagram in the parameter space of the gauge and holon and spinon-pair couplings. The Fermi liquid, the spin gap, the superconductor and the strange metallic phases have been identified in a wide region of parameters. The model may serve as a toy system modelling non-perturbative properties of the Yang-Mills theory.
The type of the vacuum is studied numerically in the maximally Abelian (MA) gauge and in the Landau (LA) gauge of SU(2) gluodynamics. The type of the vacuum is determined by a ratio between the dual coherence and the dual penetration lengths. The dual penetration length is determined from correlations between Wilson loops and electric fields in both gauges. The dual coherence length is found from correlations between Wilson loops and dimension-2 operators both in the MA and the LA gauges. This determination of the coherence length is supported by theoretical and numerical observation that the dimension-2 gluon operators in the studied gauges have a strong correlation with the monopole current determined in the MA gauge. We find numerically that the dual penetration lengths and the dual coherence lengths in the LA and the MA gauges are almost the same. Therefore we conclude, that in both gauges the type of the vacuum in the confinement phase is near to the border between the type 1 and the type 2 dual superconductors.
We propose a new class of defects in QCD which can be viewed as ``embedded'' monopoles made of quark and gluon fields. These objects are explicitly gauge-invariant and they closely resemble the Nambu monopoles in the Standard Electroweak model. We argue that the ``embedded QCD monopoles'' are proliferating in the quark gluon plasma phase while in the low-temperature hadronic phase the spatial proliferation of these objects is suppressed. At realistic quark masses and zero chemical potential the hadronic and quark-gluon phases are generally believed to be connected by a smooth crossover across which all thermodynamic quantities are non-singular. We argue that these QCD phases are separated by a well-defined boundary -- known as the Kertesz line in condensed matter systems -- associated with the onset of the proliferation of the embedded QCD monopoles in the quark gluon plasma phase.
We study the interaction energy of the confining strings in the static rectangular tetraquark system in SU(3) gluodynamics. Using a two-state approximation we calculate the energy eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors of string states of different geometry. The interactions are studied both for the co-aligned and for the counter-aligned parallel strings as the functions of positions of the tetraquark constituents. We formulate a simple soap-film model and show that with a good accuracy the string interaction energy corresponding to the ground state of the tetraquark system can be described by this soap-film model.
The vacuum type of SU(2) gluodynamics is studied using Monte-Carlo simulations in maximally Abelian (MA) gauge and in Landau (LA) gauge, where the dual Meissner effect is observed to work. The dual Meissner effect is characterized by the coherence and the penetration lengths. Correlations between Wilson loops and electric fields are evaluated in order to measure the penetration length in both gauges. The coherence length is shown to be fixed in the MA gauge from measurements of the monopole density around the static quark-antiquark pair. It is also shown numerically that a dimension 2 gluon operator A^+A^-(s) and the monopole density has a strong correlation as suggested theoretically. Such a correlation is observed also between the monopole density and A^2(s)= A^+A^-(s) + A^3A^3(s) condensate if the remaining U(1) gauge degree of freedom is fixed to U(1) Landau gauge (U1LA). The coherence length is determined numerically also from correlations between Wilson loops and A^+A^-(s) and A^2(s) in MA + U1LA gauge. Assuming that the same physics works in the LA gauge, we determine the coherence length from correlations between Wilson loops and A^2(s). Penetration lengths and coherence lengths in the two gauges are almost the same. The vacuum type of the confinement phase in both gauges is near to the border between the type 1 and the type 2 dual superconductors.
We show that in the Landau gauge of the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory the residual global symmetry supports existence of the topological vortices which resemble disclination defects in the nematic liquid crystals and the Alice (half-quantum) vortices in the superfluid heluim 3 in the A-phase. The theory also possesses half-integer and integer charged monopoles which are analogous to the point-like defects in the nematic crystal and in the liquid helium. We argue that the deconfinement phase transition in the Yang-Mills theory in the Landau gauge is associated with the proliferation of these vortices and/or monopoles. The disorder caused by these defects is suggested to be responsible for the confinement of quarks in the low-temperature phase.
Using a spin-charge separation of the gluon field in the Landau gauge we show that the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in the low-temperature phase can be considered as a nematic liquid crystal. The ground state of the nematic crystal is characterized by the A^2 condensate of the gluon field. The liquid crystal possesses various topological defects (instantons, monopoles and vortices) which are suggested to play a role in non-perturbative features of the theory.