Classical conformal invariance of QCD in the chiral limit is broken explicitly by scale anomaly. As a result, the lightest scalar particle (scalar glueball, or dilaton) in QCD is not light, and cannot be described as a Goldstone boson. Nevertheless basing on an effective low-energy theory of broken scale invariance we argue that inside the hadrons the non-perturbative interactions of gluon fields result in the emergence of a massless dilaton excitation (which we call the "scalaron"). We demonstrate that our effective theory of broken scale invariance leads to confinement. This theory allows a dual formulation as a classical Yang-Mills theory on a curved conformal space-time background. Possible applications are discussed, including the description of strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma and the spin structure of hadrons.
In a recent letter it has been shown that gauge theory with a dilaton provides linearly increasing gauge potentials from static or uniformly moving pointlike colour sources. This ensures confinement in the framework of no-pair equations. Here I would like to point out that a dilaton coupling both to the gauge curvature term and to fermion masses yields a linear potential with a scalar component and a dominant vector contribution.
We consider the model containing a dilaton vs Higgs boson in the nearly conformal sector (NCS). The potential of a dilaton in NCS is linearly rising with distances. The light scalar dilaton would be one of the best candidates to explain the LHC data in recent discovery of a Higgs-like resonance at 125 GeV.
In PRD78(2008)055005 [arXiv:0805.1503 [hep-ph]] and PRD79(2009)075004 [arXiv:0809.1324 [hep-ph]], we constructed a holographic description of walking technicolour theories using both a hard- and a soft-wall model. Here, we show that the dilaton field becomes phenomenologically irrelevant for the spectrum of spin-one resonances once a term is included in the Lagrangian that mixes the Goldstone bosons and the longitudinal components of the axial vector mesons. We show how this mixing affects our previous results and we make predictions about how this description of technicolour can be tested.
Some recent work on the implications of a dilaton in 4d gauge theories are revisited. In part I of this paper we see how an effective dilaton coupling to gauge kinetic term provides a simple attractive mechanism to generate confinement. In particular, we put emphasis on the derivation of confining analytical solutions and look into the problem how dilaton degrees of freedom modify Coulom potential and when a confining phase occurs. In part II, we solve the semi-relativistic wave equation, for Dick interquark potential using the Shifted l-expansion technique (SLET) in the heavy quarkonium secto…
The resonant and non-resonant amplification of electromagnetic inhomogeneities is investigated within a phase of coherent dilaton oscillations. We show, in some explicit toy model, how the critical energy density bound applied to the amplified fluctuations of the massless gauge fields can constrain the dilaton mass.
We construct a self-consistent holographic QCD model which can realize two most important phenomena of QCD, i.e. chiral symmetry breaking and confinement. The model is formulated in the framework of graviton-dilaton-scalar system, where the dilaton field is of dimension-2 which might be dual to the dimension-2 gluon condensate and can lead to the linear confinement, while the scalar field corresponds to the quark anti-quark condensate and can explain the property of chiral dynamics. Within this framework, both Regge spectra of hadrons and the linear potential between quarks can be accommodated…
Generalization of QCD motivated classical SU(2) Yang--Mills theory coupled to the scalar field is discussed. The massive scalar field, corresponding the scalar glueball, provides a confining potential for static, point-like, external sources. In case of massless scalar field screening solutions are found. However, there is a confining sector as well. Both, massive and massless confining solutions are compared with phenomenological potentials. The case of non-dynamical permittivity is also discussed.
We review some of the most recent work on confinement in 4d gauge theories with a massive scalar field (dilaton). Emphasis is put on the derivation of confining analytical solutions to the Coulomb problem versus dilaton effective couplings to gauge terms. It is shown that these effective theories can be relevant to model quark confinement and may shed some light on confinement mechanism. Moreover, the study in the heavy meson sector of an interquark potential derived from Dick Model, proves that phenomenological investigation of this mechanism is more than justified and deserves more efforts.
We consider the unconventional way to interpret the current data on solar neutrino oscillations as derived recently by Halprin and Leung from a string model based on the existence of the string dilaton field which remains massless in the low-energy world. The equivalence principle violation entailed by the existence of a massless dilaton may then produce neutrino oscillations even for neutrinos that are degenerate in mass. Here we calculate the medium-induced mass squared difference for solar neutrinos, which is due to their coherent interactions with the cosmic neutrino background and with so…
The converging mechanism discussed in [Damour & Nordtvedt, Physical Review Letters,70,15] for scalar-tensor theories has been applied to dilaton-like theories in several subsequent papers. In the present communication, we show that an unfortunate assumption in those studies led to a scalar-field equation unsuitable for the study of the dilaton field. The corrected scalar-field equation turns to change the numerical outcome of those studies in general, but even sometimes their qualitative aftermath. Therefore, the present result call for new investigations of the subject. On the other hand, our…
QCD motivated effective models coupled with the cosmological dilaton field are analyzed. It is shown that all models possess confining solutions with the linear potential of confinement even thought such solutions are not observed in the original effective theory. In case of the Pagels-Tomboulis model analytical solutions are explicit found.
We consider the question of bags and confinement in the framework of a theory which uses two volume elements $\sqrt{-{g}}d^{4}x$ and $Φd^{4}x$, where $Φ$ is a metric independent density. For scale invariance a dilaton field $ϕ$ is considered. Using the first order formalism, curvature ($ΦR$ and $\sqrt{-g}R^{2}$) terms, gauge field term($Φ\sqrt {- F_{μν}^{a}\, F^{a}_{αβ}g^{μα}g^{νβ}}$ and $\sqrt{-g} F_{μν}^{a}\, F^{a}_{αβ}g^{μα}g^{νβ}$) and dilaton kinetic terms are introduced in a conformally invariant way. Exponential potentials for the dilaton break down (softly) the conformal invariance dow…
We consider a generic scale invariant scalar quantum field theory and its symmetry breakdown. Based on the dimension counting identity, we give a concise proof that dilaton is exactly massless at the classical level if scale invariance is broken spontaneously. On the other hand, on the basis of the generalized dimension counting identity, we prove that the dilaton becomes massive at the quantum level if scale invariance is explicitly broken by quantum anomaly. It is pointed out that a subtlety occurs when scale invariance is spontaneously broken through a scale invariant regularization method …
By using a new parametrization of the dilaton field and including a cubic term in the bulk scalar potential, we realize linear confinement in both meson and nucleon sectors within the framework of soft-wall AdS/QCD. At the same time this model also correctly incorporate chiral symmetry breaking. We compare our resulting mass spectra with experimental data and find good agreement between them.
We calculate the running of the quark mass and the quark condensate using a dynamical soft-wall model by Csaki and Reece. We show that a correct running can be obtained with an appropriate sign for the dilaton field. In the soft-wall model with quadratic dilaton profile, a wrong sign for the dilaton field can give rise to a massless vector meson, a signature of spontaneously broken symmetry in the vector sector, which is not observed in nature. With a right parameter range, we obtain no such massless vector meson. We also find that, contrary to the soft-wall model with quadratic dilaton profil…
We analyze the existence of a dilaton in gauge theories with approximate infrared conformal symmetry. To the extent that these theories are governed in the infrared by an approximate fixed point (walking), the explicit breaking of the conformal symmetry at these scales is vanishingly small. If confinement and spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking set in at some infrared scale, the resultant breaking of the approximate conformal symmetry can lead to the existence of a dilaton with mass parametrically small compared to the confinement scale, and potentially observable at the LHC.
A self-consistent holographic QCD model is proposed which can realize both chiral symmetry breaking and confinement, two most important phenomena of QCD. It is pointed out that the model can accommodate both Regge spectra of hadrons and the linear potential between quarks. The model is formulated in the framework of graviton-dilaton-scalar system, where the dilaton field is dual to the dimension-2 gluon condensate and can lead to the linear confinement, while the scalar field corresponds to the quark anti-quark condensate and can explain the property of chiral dynamics.
We review a construction of holographic geometries dual to N=4 SYM theory on a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background and in the presence or absence of a gluon condensate and instanton density. We find the most general solution with arbitrary scale factor and show that it is diffeomorphic to topological black holes. We introduce a time-dependent boundary cosmological constant λ(t) and show energy-momentum conservation in this background. For constant λ, the deconfinement properties of the temporal Wilson loop are analysed. In most cases the Wilson loop confines throughout cosmological evolution…
We generalize the soft-wall and hard-wall models to a light-front holographic QCD model with a generic dilaton profile. The effective potential induced by a higher power dilaton profile is interpreted as a stronger color confinement at long distance, and it gradually evolves to the hard-wall model when the power increases to infinity. As an application, we investigate the exotic meson states recently discovered in experiments in the generic soft-wall model with a higher power dilaton profile, and the results are in agreement with the spectra of the exotic mesons. Our calculation indicates a we…
Numerical data of the SU(3) gauge theory with $N_f=8$ fermions in the fundamental representation suggest the existence of a large-mass regime, where the fermion mass is not small relative to the confinement scale, but nevertheless the dilaton-pion low-energy theory is applicable thanks to the parametric proximity of the conformal window. In this regime, the leading hyperscaling relations are similar to those of a mass-deformed conformal theory, so that distinguishing infrared conformality from confinement requires the study of subleading effects. Assuming that the $N_f=8$ theory confines, we e…
In this work we present the results from numerical simulations of an interacting ensemble of instanton-dyons in the $SU(3)$ gauge group with $N_f=2$ flavors of massless quarks. Dynamical quarks are included via the effective interactions induced by the fermionic determinant evaluated in the subspace of topological zero modes. The eigenvalue spectrum of the Dirac operator is studied at different volumes to extract the chiral condensate and eigenvalue gap, with both observables providing consistent values of the chiral transition temperature $T_c$. We find that a sufficient density of dyons is r…
We make use of the language of non-linear realizations to analyze electro-weak symmetry breaking scenarios in which a light dilaton emerges from the breaking of a nearly conformal strong dynamics, and compare the phenomenology of the dilaton to that of the well motivated light composite Higgs scenario. We argue that -- in addition to departures in the decay/production rates into massless gauge bosons mediated by the conformal anomaly -- characterizing features of the light dilaton scenario (as well as other scenarios admitting a light CP-even scalar not directly related to the breaking of the …
We discuss near-conformal gauge theories beyond the standard model (BSM) where interesting results on the twelve-flavor $β$-function of massless fermions in the fundamental representation of the SU(3) color gauge group and dilaton tests of the light scalar with two massless fermions in the two-index symmetric tensor (sextet) representation can be viewed as parts of the same BSM paradigm under investigation. We report results from high precision analysis of the twelve-flavor $β$-function \cite{Fodor:2016zil} refuting its published IRFP \cite{Cheng:2014jba,Hasenfratz:2016dou}. We present our obj…
The dynamics of a cosmological (de)confinement phase transition is studied in nearly conformally invariant field theories, where confinement is predominantly spontaneously generated and associated with a light "dilaton" field. We show how the leading contribution to the transition rate can be computed within the dilaton effective theory. In the context of Composite Higgs theories, we demonstrate that a simple scenario involving two renormalization-group fixed points can make the transition proceed much more rapidly than in the minimal scenario, thereby avoiding excessive dilution of matter abu…
The dilaton low-energy effective field theory (EFT) of an emergent light scalar is probed in the paradigm of strongly coupled near-conformal gauge theories. These studies are motivated by models which exhibit small $β$-functions near the conformal window (CW), perhaps with slow scale-dependent walking and a light scalar with ${ 0^{++} }$ quantum numbers. We report our results from the hypothesis of a dilaton inspired EFT analysis with two massless fermions in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. With important caveats in our conclusions, conformal sym…
We show that, in 1+1 dimensional gauge theories, a heavy probe charge is screened by dynamical massless fermions both in the case when the source and the dynamical fermions belong to the same representation of the gauge group and, unexpectedly, in the case when the representation of the probe charge is smaller than the representation of the massless fermions. Thus, a fractionally charged heavy probe is screened by dynamical fermions of integer charge in the massless Schwinger model, and a colored probe in the fundamental representation is screened in $QCD_2$ with adjoint massless Majorana ferm…
I propose to change the sign of the dilaton in the infrared~(IR) soft-wall AdS/QCD model, in order to implement confinement. The deformed model exhibits interesting properties, especially in describing chiral symmetry breaking. The expectation value of the scalar field $X$, which determines the quark mass and condensate, approaches a constant in the IR limit, rather than blows up in the original model. In contrast to the estimate in Ref. \cite{Shifman:2007xn}, this kind of solution will not lead to chiral symmetry restoration for highly-excited states, due to the property of the harmonic-oscil…
We present a five-dimensional anisotropic holographic model for light quarks supported by Einstein-dilaton-two-Maxwell action. This model generalizing isotropic holographic model with light quarks is characterized by a Van der Waals-like phase transition between small and large black holes. We compare the location of the phase transition for Wilson loops with the positions of the phase transition related to the background instability and describe the QCD phase diagram in the thermodynamic plane -- temperature $T$ and chemical potential $μ$. The Cornell potential behavior in this anisotropic mo…
We elaborate on the existence of a spurious massless scalar mode in the vector channel of soft-wall models with incorrectly chosen sign of the exponential profile defining the wall. We re-iterate the point made in our earlier paper and demonstrate that the presence of the mode is robust, depending only on the infra-red asymptotics of the wall. We also re-emphasize that desired confinement properties can be realized with the correct sign choice.
We study a set of examples of holographic duals to theories with spontaneous breaking of conformal invariance in different dimensions. The geometries are domain walls interpolating between two AdS spaces, with a non-trivial background scalar field dual to a relevant operator. We comment on a subtlety in the low momentum expansion pointed out in arXiv:1304.3051 for the case of background gravity and revise the dynamical gravity results of arXiv:1207.0006, where the dilaton pole was missing in the scalar-scalar and tensor-tensor two-point functions. We compute the energy-momentum tensor and scal…
We analyze the question of screening versus confinement in bosonized massless QCD in two dimensions. We deduce the screening behavior of massless $SU(N_c)$ QCD with flavored fundamental fermions and fermions in the adjoint representation. This is done by computing the potential between external quarks as well as by bosonizing also the external sources and analyzing the states of the combined system. We write down novel "non-abelian Schwinger like" solutions of the equations of motion, compute their masses and argue that an exchange of massive modes of this type is associated with the screening…
We derive an explicit form of the dilaton potential in improved holographic QCD (IHQCD) from the experimental data of the $ρ$ meson spectrum. For this purpose we make use of the emergent bulk geometry obtained by deep learning from the hadronic data in arXiv:2005.02636. Requiring that the geometry is a solution of an IHQCD derives the corresponding dilaton potential backwards. This determines the bulk action in a data-driven way, which enables us at the same time to ensure that the deep learning proposal is a consistent gravity. Furthermore, we find that the resulting potential satisfies the r…
As the number of fermion fields is increased, gauge theories are expected to undergo a transition from a QCD-like phase, characterised by confinement and chiral symmetry breaking, to a conformal phase, where the theory becomes scale-invariant at large distances. In this paper, we discuss some properties of a third phase, where spontaneously broken conformal symmetry is characterised by its Goldstone boson, the dilaton. In this phase, which we refer to as conformal dilaton phase, the massless pole corresponding to the Goldstone boson guarantees that the conformal Ward identities are satisfied i…
We present a solution of the five-dimensional gravity-dilaton-tachyon equations of motion with a pure AdS_5 metric and a quadratic dilaton and linear tachyon in conformal coordinates. This leads to an infrared soft wall model where the dilaton profile gives rise to linear Regge trajectories for the four-dimensional mass spectrum of the dual gauge theory. Even though our approach is phenomenological the scalar fields resemble the dilaton and the closed string tachyon of a non-critical string theory. Interestingly, the linear tachyon has the correct profile to imply that chiral symmetry is not r…
