In this thesis, several aspects of Yang-Mills theory are studied. It begins with the constrained quantization in the Coulomb gauge, using the Dirac bracket formalism. A nonperturbative analysis of the infrared asymptotics of propagators in any spatial dimension follows, and a connection to the Landau gauge is given. In the Coulomb gauge Hamiltonian approach, a linearly rising static color Coulomb potential is found, along with an infrared diverging gluon energy, both signaling confinement. The propagators and vertices in the entire momentum regime are calculated with the variational principle. In the ultraviolet, a nonperturbative running coupling constant is studied, and certain asymptotic forms of the propagators are postulated. Furthermore, the back reaction of the gauge sector to the inclusion of external charges is investigated.
Some non perturbative aspects of the pure SU(3) Yang-Mills theory are investigated assuming a specific form of the beta function, based on a recent modification by Ryttov and Sannino of the known one for supersymmetric gauge theories. The characteristic feature is a pole at a particular value of the coupling constant, g. First it is noted, using dimensional analysis, that physical quantities behave smoothly as one travels from one side of the pole to the other. Then it is argued that the form of the integrated beta function g(m), where m is the mass scale, determines the mass gap of the theory…
We report on the recent proposal of a class of nonlinear covariant gauges that can be formulated as an extremization procedure which admits a simple discretization well-suited to numerical minimization techniques. This class of gauges is continuously connected to the Landau gauge and, in the ultraviolet, where one can ignore Gribov ambiguities, it reduces to the Curci-Ferrari-Delbourgo-Jarvis gauges.
In this work, we study the nonperturbative renormalization of the supercurrent operator in $\mathcal{N} = 1$ Supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory, using a gauge-invariant renormalization scheme (GIRS). The proposed prescription addresses successfully the unwanted mixing of the supercurrent with other operators of equal or lower dimension, which respect the same global symmetries. This mixing is introduced by the unavoidable breaking of supersymmetry on the lattice. In GIRS all gauge-noninvariant operators, which mix with the supercurrent, are excluded from the renormalization procedure. The …
In order to understand the so-called decoupling solution for gluon and ghost propagators in QCD, we give a nonperturbative construction of a massive vector field describing a non-Abelian massive spin-one particle, which has the correct physical degrees of freedom and is invariant under a modified Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin transformation, in a massive Yang-Mills model without the Higgs field, i.e., the Curci-Ferrari model. The resulting non-Abelian massive vector boson field is written using a nonlinear but local transformation from the original fields in the Curci-Ferrari model. As an applicat…
We investigate asymptotic behaviors of the strong coupling limit in the N=2 supersymmetric non-commutative Yang-Mills theory. The strong coupling behavior is quite different from the commutative one since the non-commutative dual U(1) theory is asymptotic free, although the monodoromy is the same as that of the ordinary theory. Singularities are produced by infinitely heavy monopoles and dyons. Nonperturbative corrections may be determined by holomorphy.
We obtain the exact beta function for $N=2$ SUSY $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills theory and prove the nonperturbative Renormalization Group Equation $$ \partial_Λ{\cal F}(a,Λ)= {Λ\over Λ_0}\partial_{Λ_0}{\cal F}(a_0,Λ_0) e^{-2\int_{τ_0}^τ{dx β^{-1}(x)}}. $$
Using the effective potential approach for composite operators, we have formulated a general method how to calculate the truly nonperturbative vacuum energy density in the axial gauge QCD quantum models of its ground state. It is defined as integrated out the truly nonperturbative part of the full gluon propagator over the deep infrared region (soft momentum region). The nontrivial minimization procedure makes it possible to determine the value of the soft cutoff in terms of the corresponding nonperturbative scale parameter which is inevitably presented in any nonperturbative model for the ful…
We investigate the infrared dynamics of a nonsupersymmetric SU(X) gauge theory featuring an adjoint fermion, Nf Dirac flavors and an Higgs-like complex Nf x Nf scalar which is a gauge singlet. We first establish the existence of an infrared stable perturbative fixed point and then investigate the spectrum near this point. We demonstrate that this theory naturally features a light scalar degree of freedom to be identified with the dilaton and elucidate its physical properties. We compute the spectrum and demonstrate that at low energy the nonperturbative part of the spectrum of the theory is th…
We propose how to explicitly introduce the Jaffe-Witten mass gap into the quantum Yang-Mills theory. Through the full gluon propagator it is defined as such nonperturbative scale that when it formally goes to zero, then the perturbative phase survives in the theory only. The close link between mass gap and strong infrared singularities which are due to dominated in the QCD vacuum self-interaction of massless gluons is also discussed. This interaction leads thus to the zero momentum modes enhancement effect in the QCD nonperturbative vacuum. Using theory of distributions, we argue that strong n…
We describe a simple method for determining the strong-coupling BPS spectrum of four dimensional N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The idea is to represent the magnetic monopoles and dyons in terms of D-brane boundary states of a non-compact d=2 N=2 Landau-Ginzburg model. In this way the quantum truncated BPS spectrum at the origin of the moduli space can be directly mapped to the finite number of primary fields of the superconformal minimal models.
A model for the infrared sector of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, based on magnetic vortex degrees of freedom represented by (closed) random world-surfaces, is presented. The model quantitatively describes both the confinement properties (including the finite-temperature transition to a deconfined phase) and the topological susceptibility of the Yang-Mills ensemble. A (quenched) study of the spectrum of the Dirac operator furthermore yields a behavior for the chiral condensate which is compatible with results obtained in lattice gauge theory.
We present the first nonperturbative large-$N$ calculation of the $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric (SUSY) $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ Yang$-$Mills gluino condensate obtained by means of numerical simulations of the lattice-discretized theory, exploiting large-$N$ twisted volume reduction. We present two different determinations based, respectively, on the Banks$-$Casher formula and on the Gell-Mann$-$Oakes$-$Renner relation, both giving perfectly consistent results. By expressing the lattice results in the Novikov$-$Shifman$-$Vainshtein$-$Zakharov (NSVZ) scheme, we are able for the first time to compare nu…
We examine the possibility of dynamical supersymmetry breaking in two-dimensional $\mathcal{N} = (2, 2)$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The theory is discretized on a Euclidean spacetime lattice using a supersymmetric lattice action. We compute the vacuum energy of the theory at finite temperature and take the zero temperature limit. Supersymmetry will be spontaneously broken in this theory if the measured ground state energy is non-zero. By performing simulations on a range of lattices up to $96 \times 96$ we are able to perform a careful extrapolation to the continuum limit for a wide ran…
We study the Landau gauge correlators of Yang-Mills fields for infrared Euclidean momenta in the context of a massive extension of the Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian which, we argue, underlies a variety of continuum approaches. Standard (perturbative) renormalization group techniques with a specific, infrared-safe renormalization scheme produce so-called decoupling and scaling solutions for the ghost and gluon propagators, which correspond to nontrivial infrared fixed points. The decoupling fixed point is infrared stable and weakly coupled, while the scaling fixed point is unstable and generically s…
We investigate nonperturbative effects in N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric theories using a relation between perturbative and exact anomalies as a starting point. For N=2 supersymmetric SU(n) Yang-Mills theory we derive the general structure of the Picard-Fuchs equations; for N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories we find holomorphic part of the superpotential (with gluino condensate) exactly.
We evaluate the thermodynamic quantities of Yang-Mills theory using the Gribov quantization, which deals with nonperturbative resummation. The magnetic scale is automatically incorporated into the framework and we find it efficient to stabilize the perturbative expansion of the free energy. In the temperature range $T=T_c \sim 2\,T_c$ the major uncertainty in our results comes from the nonperturbative running coupling that is adopted from the lattice simulation, while the convergence above $2\,T_c$ is impressively robust. We also present the corresponding interaction measure (i.e., trace anoma…
An analytical and nonperturbative approach to SU(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills thermodynamics is developed and applied. Each theory comes in three phases: A deconfining, a preconfining, and a confining one. We show how macroscopic and inert scalar fields form in each phase and how they determine the ground-state physics and the properties of the excitations. While the excitations in the deconfining and preconfining phase are massless or massive gauge modes the excitations in the confining phase are massless or massive spin-1/2 fermions. The nature of the two phase transitions is investigated for eac…
We study the nonperturbative gluon and ghost propagators in d=3 Yang-Mills, using the Schwinger-Dyson equations of the pinch technique. The use of the Schwinger mechanism leads to the dynamical generation of a gluon mass, which, in turn, gives rise to an infrared finite gluon propagator and ghost dressing function. The propagators obtained are in very good agreement with the results of SU(2) lattice simulations.
These lectures provide an introduction to the behavior of strongly-coupled supersymmetric gauge theories. After a discussion of the effective Lagrangian in nonsupersymmetric and supersymmetric field theories, I analyze the qualitative behavior of the simplest illustrative models. These include supersymmetric QCD for $N_f < N_c$, in which the superpotential is generated nonperturbatively, N=2 SU(2) Yang-Mills theory (the Seiberg-Witten model), in which the nonperturbative behavior of the effective coupling is described geometrically, and supersymmetric QCD for N_f large, in which the theory ill…
The method of reduction of a non-Abelian gauge theory to the corresponding unconstrained system is exemplified for SU(2) Yang-Mills field theory. The reduced Hamiltonian which describes the dynamics of the gauge invariant variables is presented in the form of a strong coupling expansion. The physical variables are separated into fields, which are scalars under spatial rotations, and rotational degrees of freedom. It is shown how in the infrared limit an effective nonlinear sigma model type Lagrangian can be derived which out of the six physical fields involves only one of three scalar fields a…
In a series of papers, we examine the physical unitarity in a massive Yang-Mills theory without the Higgs field in which the color gauge symmetry is not spontaneously broken and kept intact. For this purpose, we use a new framework proposed in the previous paper Kondo [arXiv:1208.3521] based on a nonperturbative construction of a non-Abelian field describing a massive spin-one vector boson field, which enables us to perform the perturbative and nonperturbative studies on the physical unitarity. In this paper, we present a new perturbative treatment for the physical unitarity after giving the g…
We find the nonperturbative relation between $\langle {\rm tr} ϕ^2 \rangle$, $\langle {\rm tr} ϕ^3\rangle$ the prepotential ${\cal F}$ and the vevs $\langle ϕ_i\rangle$ in $N=2$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories with gauge group $SU(3)$. Nonlinear differential equations for ${\cal F}$ including the Witten -- Dijkgraaf -- Verlinde -- Verlinde equation are obtained. This indicates that $N=2$ SYM theories are essentially topological field theories and that should be seen as low-energy limit of some topological string theory. Furthermore, we construct relevant modular invariant quantities, derive…
The topological susceptibility is calculated within the Hamiltonian approach to Yang-Mills theory in Coulomb gauge, using the vacuum wave functional previously determined by a variational solution of the Yang-Mills Schroedinger equation. The numerical result agrees qualitatively with the predictions of lattice simulations.
We propose a nonperturbative approach to nonabelian two-form gauge theory. We formulate the theory on a lattice in terms of plaquette as fundamental dynamical variable, and assign U(N) Chan-Paton colors at each boundary link. We show that, on hypercubic lattices, such colored plaquette variables constitute Yang-Baxter maps, where holonomy is characterized by certain dynamical deformation of quantum Yang-Baxter equations. Consistent dimensional reduction to Wilson's lattice gauge theory singles out unique compactness condition. We study a class of theories where the compactness condition is sol…
We study Landau-gauge Yang-Mills theory by means of a nonperturbative vertex expansion of the quantum effective action. Using an exact renormalization group equation, we compute the fully dressed gluon and ghost propagators to lowest nontrivial order in the vertex expansion. In the mid-momentum regime, $p^2\sim\mathcal{O}(1)\text{GeV}^2$, we probe the propagator flow with various {\em ansätze} for the three- and four-point correlations. We analyze the potential of these truncation schemes to generate a nonperturbative scale. We find universal infrared behavior of the propagators, if the gluon …
The exact nonperturbative confining solutions of the SU(3)-Yang-Mills equations recently obtained by author in Minkowski spacetime with the help of the black hole theory techniques are analysed and on the basis of them the gluon propagator corresponding to linear confinement at large distances (small momenta) is constructed in a nonperturbative way. At small distances (large momenta) the resulting propagator passes on to the standard (nonperturbative) gluon propagator used in the perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The results suggest some scenario of linear confinement for mesons and q…
We employ nonperturbative flow equations for the description of the effective action in Yang-Mills theories. We find that the perturbative vacuum with vanishing gauge field strength does not correspond to the minimum of the Euclidean effective action. The true ground state is characterized by a nonvanishing gluon condensate.
Recently, a nonperturbative formulation of 4d N=4 super Yang-Mills theory which does not require fine tuning at least to all order in perturbation theory has been proposed by combining two-dimensional lattice and matrix model techniques. In this paper we provide an analogous model by utilizing deconstruction approach of Kaplan et al. Two-dimensional lattice with a plane wave deformation is deconstructed from a matrix model and two additional dimensions emerge through the Myers effect. In other words we construct a D1-brane theory from which a D3-brane theory comes out. The action is much simpl…
It is pointed out that the Parke-Taylor or maximally helicity violating amplitudes in the pure Yang-Mills can, after some specifications, be interpreted as amplitudes of scattering of massive vector bosons in the Higgs-Yang-Mills system.
We review earlier proposals for $E_8$ family unification, and discuss why recent work of Kovner and Shifman on condensates in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories suggests the reconsideration of $E_8$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills as a family unification theory.
I discuss various situations in which perturbative expansions are used in Yang-Mills theories with asymptotic freedom and establish the limits of its applicability.
In this series of three papers, we generalize the derivation of dual photons and monopoles by Polyakov, and Banks, Myerson and Kogut, to obtain approximative models of SU(2) lattice gauge theory. The papers take three different representations as their starting points: the representation as a BF Yang-Mills theory, the spin foam representation and the plaquette representation. The derivations are based on stationary phase approximations. In this first article, we cast 3- and 4-dimensional SU(2) lattice gauge theory in the form of a lattice BF Yang-Mills theory. In several steps, the expectation…
In this talk, we examine the physical unitarity in a massive Yang-Mills theory without the Higgs field in which the color gauge symmetry is not spontaneously broken and kept intact. For this purpose, we use a new framework proposed one of the authors based on a nonperturbative construction of a non-Abelian field describing a massive spin-one vector boson field, which enables us to perform the perturbative and nonperturbative studies on the physical unitarity. Moreover, we present a new perturbative treatment for the physical unitarity after giving the general properties of the massive Yang-Mil…
A recent investigation of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory found several classical solutions with bad behaviour at infinity : one of the potential components oscillated and another tended to infinity. In this paper we apply an idea due to Heisenberg about the quantization of strongly interacting nonlinear fields to these classical singular solutions. We find that this quantization procedure eliminates the bad long distance features while retaining the interesting short distance aspects of these solutions.
We summarize recent nonperturbative results obtained for the thermodynamics of an SU(2) and an SU(3) Yang-Mills theory being in its confining (center) phase. This phase is associated with a dynamical breaking of the local magnetic center symmetry. Emphasis is put on an explanation of the involved concepts.
We summarize recent nonperturbative results obtained for the thermodynamics of an SU(2) and an SU(3) Yang-Mills theory being in its preconfining (magnetic) phase. We focus on an explanation of the involved concepts and derivations, and we avoid technical details.
We summarize recent nonperturbative results obtained for the thermodynamics of an SU(2) and an SU(3) Yang-Mills theory being in its deconfining (electric) phase. Emphasis is put on an explanation of the concepts involved. The presentation of technical details is avoided.
We employ nonperturbative flow equations for an investigation of the effective action in Yang-Mills theories. We compute the effective action $Γ[B]$ for constant color magnetic fields $B$ and examine Savvidy's conjecture of an unstable perturbative vacuum. Our results indicate that the absolute minimum of $Γ[B]$ occurs for B=0. Gluon condensation is described by a nonvanishing expectation value of the regularized composite operator $F_{μν}F^{μν}$ which agrees with phenomenological estimates.
A generalization of the two-dimensional Yang-Mills and generalized Yang-Mills theory is introduced in which the building B-F theory is nonlocal in the auxiliary field. The classical and quantum properties of this nonlocal generalization are investigated and it is shown that for large gauge groups, there exist a simple correspondence between the properties a nonlocal theory and its corresponding local theory.
An explicit canonical transformation is constructed to relate the physical subspace of Yang-Mills theory to the phase space of the ADM variables of general relativity. This maps 3+1 dimensional Yang-Mills theory to local evolution of metrics on 3 manifolds.
Using an infinite number of fields, we construct actions for D=4 self-dual Yang-Mills with manifest Lorentz invariance and for D=10 super-Yang-Mills with manifest super-Poincaré invariance. These actions are generalizations of the covariant action for the D=2 chiral boson which was first studied by McClain, Wu, Yu and Wotzasek.
Recent work on the numerical solution of supersymmetric gauge theories is described. The method used is SDLCQ (supersymmetric discrete light-cone quantization). An application to N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in 2+1 dimensions at large N_c is summarized. The addition of a Chern-Simons term is also discussed.
I review the appearence of integrable structures in the formulation of exact nonperturbative solutions to $4d$ supersymmetric quantum gauge theories. Various examples of ${\cal N}\geq 2$ SUSY Yang-Mills nonperturbative solutions are adequately described in terms of the (deformations of the) finite-gap solutions to integrable models: through the generating differential and the $τ$-function. One of the basic definitions of generating differential is discussed and its role in the theory of integrable systems is demonstrated.
We will discuss an integrable structure for weakly coupled superconformal Yang-Mills theories, describe certain equivalences for the Yangian algebra, and fill a technical gap in our previous study of this subject.
The planar Yang-Mills theory in three spatial dimensions is examined in a particular representation which explicitly embodies factorization. The effective planar Yang-Mills theory Hamiltonian is constructed in this representation.
Yang-Mills theory in the first order formalism appears as the deformation of a topological field theory, the pure BF theory. In this approach new non local observables are inherited from the topological theory and the operators entering the t'Hooft algebra find an explicit realization. A calculation of the {\it vev}'s of these operators is performed in the Abelian Projection gauge.
Recent developments in the determination of the planar S-matrix of N=4 Super Yang-Mills are closely related to its Yangian symmetry. Here we provide evidence for a yet unobserved additional symmetry: the Yangian level-one helicity operator.
We discuss a non-minimal Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs model with uniaxial anisotropy in the group space associated with the Higgs field. We apply this theory to the problem of propagation of color and color-acoustic waves in the gravitational background related to the non-minimal regular Wu-Yang monopole.
The BCFW recursion relation in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills theory is solved using Yang-Baxter $R$-operators in the NMHV sector. Explicit expressions for $\mathcal{R}$-invariants are obtained in terms of the chains of $R$-operators acting on an appropriate basic state.
The large-N behavior of Yang-Mills and generalized Yang-Mills theories in the double-scaling limit is investigated. By the double-scaling limit, it is meant that the area of the manifold on which the theory is defined, is itself a function of N. It is shown that phase transitions of different orders occur, depending on the functional dependence of the area on N. The finite-size scalings of the system are also investigated. Specifically, the dependence of the dominant representation on A, for large but finite N is determined.
We present new relations for scattering amplitudes of color ordered gluons and gravitons in Einstein-Yang-Mills theory. Tree-level amplitudes of arbitrary multiplicities and polarizations involving up to three gravitons and up to two color traces are reduced to partial amplitudes of pure Yang-Mills theory. In fact, the double-trace identities apply to Einstein-Yang-Mills extended by a dilaton and a B-field. Our results generalize recent work of Stieberger and Taylor for the single graviton case with a single color trace. As the derivation is made in the dimension-agnostic Cachazo-He-Yuan forma…
We analyze in an effective Lagrangian framework the connection between Super QCD (Super Yang Mills) and QCD (Yang Mills) by highlighting the crucial role that the zero modes play in the process of decoupling gluinos and squarks.
We show that the solutions of SU(2) Yang-Mills-dilation and Einstein-Yang-Mills-dilaton theories described in a sequence of papers by Kleihaus and Kunz are not regular in the gauge field part.
The existence of a "bonus" U(1) level-one Yangian symmetry of N=4 super-Yang-Mills has recently been proposed. We provide evidence for this proposal by constructing the BRST-invariant nonlocal charge in the pure spinor sigma model corresponding to this bonus level-one symmetry. We also construct analogous charges for bonus U(1) symmetries at all odd levels of the Yangian.
