In the leading order of the large-$N$ approximation, we study the renormalon ambiguity in the gluon (or, more appropriately, photon) condensate in the 2D supersymmetric $\mathbb{C}P^{N-1}$ model on~$\mathbb{R}\times S^1$ with the $\mathbb{Z}_N$ twisted boundary conditions. In our large~$N$ limit, the combination $ΛR$, where $Λ$ is the dynamical scale and $R$~is the $S^1$ radius, is kept fixed (we set $ΛR\ll1$ so that the perturbative expansion with respect to the coupling constant at the mass scale~$1/R$ is meaningful). We extract the perturbative part from the large-$N$ expression of the gluon condensate and obtain the corresponding Borel transform~$B(u)$. For~$\mathbb{R}\times S^1$, we find that the Borel singularity at~$u=2$, which exists in the system on the uncompactified~$\mathbb{R}^2$ and corresponds to twice the minimal bion action, disappears. Instead, an unfamiliar renormalon singularity \emph{emerges\/} at~$u=3/2$ for the compactified space~$\mathbb{R}\times S^1$. The semi-classical interpretation of this peculiar singularity is not clear because $u=3/2$ is not dividable by the minimal bion action. It appears that our observation for the system on~$\mathbb{R}\times S^1$ prompts reconsideration on the semi-classical bion picture of the infrared renormalon.
I discuss similarities and differences between the resurgence program in quantum mechanics and the operator product expansion in strongly coupled Yang-Mills theories. In ${\mathcal N}=1$ super-Yang-Mills renormalons possess peculiar features that make them different from renormalons in QCD. Their conventional QCD interpretation does not seem to be applicable in supersymmetric Yang-Mills in a straightforward manner.
I argue that in large-$N$ supersymmetric QCD infrared renormalons are absent in the conformal window, there is no need in conspiracy, and vacuum expectation values of at least some gluon operators vanish. Basing on this conclusion I conjecture that in supersymmetric gluodynamics (supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory without matter) at least the leading renormalon ambiguity disappears which would be consistent with the fact that the gluon condensate vanishes in this theory, $\langle G_{μν}^a G^{μν\,a}\rangle =0$.
We study the infrared renormalon in the gluon condensate in the $SU(N)$ gauge theory with $n_W$-flavor adjoint Weyl fermions (QCD(adj.)) on~$\mathbb{R}^3\times S^1$ with the $\mathbb{Z}_N$ twisted boundary conditions. We rely on the so-called large-$β_0$ approximation as a conventional tool to analyze the renormalon, in which only Feynman diagrams that dominate in the large-$n_W$ limit are considered while the coefficient of the vacuum polarization is set by hand to the one-loop beta function~$β_0=11/3-2n_W/3$. In the large~$N$ limit within the large-$β_0$ approximation, the W-boson, which acq…
We present additional observations to previous studies on the infrared (IR) renormalon in $SU(N)$ QCD(adj.), the $SU(N)$ gauge theory with $n_W$-flavor adjoint Weyl fermions on~$\mathbb{R}^3\times S^1$ with the $\mathbb{Z}_N$ twisted boundary condition. First, we show that, for arbitrary finite~$N$, a logarithmic factor in the vacuum polarization of the "photon" (the gauge boson associated with the Cartan generators of~$SU(N)$) disappears under the $S^1$~compactification. Since the IR renormalon is attributed to the presence of this logarithmic factor, it is concluded that there is no IR renor…
Higher order renormalons beyond the chain of one-loop bubbles are discussed. A perturbation method for the infrared renormalon residue is found. The large order behavior of the current-current correlation function due to the first infrared renormalon is determined in both QED and QCD to the first three orders.
We use the "conspiracy" between infrared (IR) renormalons and condensates in the operator product expansion for correlation functions to make predictions concerning the structure of singularities in the Borel plane for the perturbative series in quantum field theories with different levels of supersymmetry. The same conspiracy can be used for establishing the absence of condensates or IR renormalons in gauge theories with an IR conformal regime or fully Higgsed gauge theories. The absence of the renormalon-induced factorial divergence implies that instanton contributions (where present) must b…
The uncertainties from the infrared renormalons in the (color dipole) gluon distribution is estimated. It is shown that non-linear saturation effects at small-$x$ shift the first IR pole at the Borel plane from $2/β_2$ to $1/β_2$. As a consequence the estimated uncertainty is found to be ${\cal O}\left(Λ_{\rm QCD}^2\right)$ instead of ${\cal O}\left(Λ_{\rm QCD}^4\right)$.
We study IR-renormalon divergences in N=1 supersymmetric Yang Mills gauge theories and in two dimensional non linear sigma models with mass gap. We derive, in both types of theories, a direct connection between IR- renormalons and fractional instanton effects. From the point of view of large $N$ dualities we work out a connection between IR-renormalons and $c=1$ matrix models.
The exact mass gap of the O(N) Gross-Neveu model is known, for arbitrary $N$, from non-perturbative methods. However, a "naive" perturbative expansion of the pole mass exhibits an infinite set of infrared renormalons at order 1/N, formally similar to the QCD heavy quark pole mass renormalons, potentially leading to large ${\cal O}(Λ)$ perturbative ambiguities. We examine the precise vanishing mechanism of such infrared renormalons, which avoids this (only apparent)contradiction, and operates without need of (Borel) summation contour prescription, usually preventing unambiguous separation of pe…
We derive the semiclassical contributions from the real and complex bions in the two-dimensional $\mathbb C P^{N-1}$ sigma model on ${\mathbb R} \times S^{1}$ with a twisted boundary condition. The bion configurations are saddle points of the complexified Euclidean action, which can be viewed as bound states of a pair of fractional instantons with opposite topological charges. We first derive the bion solutions by solving the equation of motion in the model with a potential which simulates an interaction induced by fermions in the $\mathbb C P^{N-1}$ quantum mechanics. The bion solutions have …
We analyze the renormalon diagram of gauge theories on $\mathbb R^3\times \mathbb S^1$. In particular, we perform exact one loop calculations for the vacuum polarization in QCD with adjoint matter and observe that all infrared logarithms, as functions of the external momentum, cancel between the vacuum part and finite volume part, which eliminates the IR renormalon problem. We argue that the singularities in the Borel plane, arising from the topological neutral bions, are not associated with renormalons, but with the proliferation of the Feynman diagrams. As a byproduct, we obtain, for the fir…
We discuss the relation between the Gell-Mann-Low beta function and the ``flowing couplings'' of the Wilsonian action $S_Ł[ϕ]$ of the exact renormalization group (RG) at the scale $Ł$. This relation involves the ultraviolet region of $Ł$ so that the condition of renormalizability is equivalent to the Callan-Symanzik equation. As an illustration, by using the exact RG formulation, we compute the beta function in Yang-Mills theory to one loop (and to two loops for the scalar case). We also study the infrared (IR) renormalons. This formulation is particularly suited for this study since: $i$) $Ł$…
Perturbation series in quantum field theory are generally divergent asymptotic series which are also typically not Borel resummable in the sense that the resummed series is ambiguous. The ambiguity is associated with singularities in the Borel plane on the positive real axis. In quantum mechanics there are cases in which the ambiguity that arises in perturbation theory cancels against a similarly ambiguous contribution from instanton--anti-instanton events. In asymptotically free gauge theories this mechanism does not suffice because perturbation theory develops ambiguities associated with sin…
In integrable field theories in two dimensions, the Bethe ansatz can be used to compute exactly the ground state energy in the presence of an external field coupled to a conserved charge. We generalize previous results by Volin and we extract analytic results for the perturbative expansion of this observable, up to very high order, in various asymptotically free theories: the non-linear sigma model and its supersymmetric extension, the Gross--Neveu model, and the principal chiral field. We study the large order behavior of these perturbative series and we give strong evidence that, as expected…
By employing the $1/N$ expansion, we compute the vacuum energy~$E(δε)$ of the two-dimensional supersymmetric (SUSY) $\mathbb{C}P^{N-1}$ model on~$\mathbb{R}\times S^1$ with $\mathbb{Z}_N$ twisted boundary conditions to the second order in a SUSY-breaking parameter~$δε$. This quantity was vigorously studied recently by Fujimori et\ al.\ using a semi-classical approximation based on the bion, motivated by a possible semi-classical picture on the infrared renormalon. In our calculation, we find that the parameter~$δε$ receives renormalization and, after this renormalization, the vacuum energy bec…
We study some aspects of perturbation theory in $N=1$ supersymmetric abelian gauge theories with massive charged matter. In general gauges, infrared (IR) divergences and nonlocal behavior arise in 1PI diagrams, associated with a $1/k^4$ term in the propagator for the vector superfield. We examine this structure in supersymmetric QED. The IR divergences are gauge-dependent and must cancel in physical quantities like the electron pole mass. We demonstrate that cancellation takes place in a nontrivial way, amounting to a reorganization of the perturbative series from powers of $e^2$ to powers of …
It was conjectured that bions, semi-classical objects found in a compactified spacetime, are responsible for the cancellation of the so-called renormalon ambiguities. Contrary to the conjecture, we argue that the ambiguity due to the bion corresponds to the proliferation of Feynman diagrams. We point out that the amplitudes of almost all Feynman diagrams are enhanced due to modifications of the infrared structure of perturbation theory upon an $S^1$ compactification and twisted boundary conditions. Our findings clarify the role of the semi-classical object in resurgence structure, which has be…
Using a careful choice of infrared (IR) subtraction scheme, we demonstrate the cancellation of all terms with transcendental weights 0,1,2 from the finite part of the full-color two-loop four-gluon $\mathcal{N}=2$ supersymmetric QCD amplitude, with $N_f$ massless supersymmetric quarks. This generalizes the previously observed cancellation of weight-2 terms in the superconformal theory, where $N_f=2N_c$ for gauge group SU$(N_c)$. The subtraction scheme follows naturally both from general IR factorization principles and from an integrand-level analysis of divergences in this amplitude. The diver…
We review gauge invariant $\mathcal N =1$ supersymmetric massive $U(1)$ gauge theory coupled to matter and Stuckelberg superfields. We focus on the leading order self energy and vertex correction to the matter field in the massless limit of both the $U(1)$ vector superfield and the Stuckelberg superfield. We explicitly verify that the theory is infrared divergence free in the massless limit. Hence the Stuckelberg mechanism appears to be the efficient route to handle infrared divergences seen in supersymmetric quantum electrodynamics.Since these additional particles have very small masses they …
We consider strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories softly broken by the addition of gaugino masses $m_λ$ and (non-holomorphic) scalar masses $m^2$, taken to be small relative to the dynamical scale $Λ$. For theories with a weakly coupled dual description in the infrared, we compute exactly the leading soft masses for the "magnetic" degrees of freedom, with uncalculable corrections suppressed by powers of $(m_λ/Λ), (m/Λ)$. The exact relations hold between the infrared fixed point "magnetic" soft masses and the ultraviolet fixed point "electric" soft masses, and correspond to a duality m…
Using superfield Dyson-Schwinger equations, we compute the infrared dynamics of the semi-amputated full vertex, corresponding to the effective running gauge coupling, in N-flavour {\mathcal N}=1 supersymmetric QED(3). It is shown that the presence of a supersymmetry-preserving mass for the matter multiplet stabilizes the infrared gauge coupling against oscillations present in the massless case, and we therefore infer that the massive vacuum is thus selected at the level of the (quantum) effective action. We further demonstrate that such a mass can indeed be generated dynamically in a self-cons…
We analyze properties of non-supersymmetric isometry-preserving perturbations to the infrared region of the warped deformed conifold, i.e. the Klebanov Strassler solution. We discuss both perturbations that "squash" the geometry, so that the internal space is no longer conformally Calabi-Yau, and perturbations that do not squash the geometry. Among the perturbations that we discuss is the solution that describes the linearized near-tip backreaction of a smeared collection of anti-D3-branes positioned in the deep infrared. Such a configuration is a candidate gravity dual of a non-supersymmetric…
It has recently been argued that the confining vacua of Yang-Mills theory in the far infrared can have topological degrees of freedom given by magnetic $\mathbb{Z}_q$ gauge field, both in the non-supersymmetric case and in the N=1 supersymmetric case. In this short note we give another piece of evidence by computing and matching the supersymmetric index of the pure super Yang-Mills theory both in the ultraviolet and in the infrared.
We present a class of supersymmetric models in which the lightest Higgs-boson mass can be as large as a few hundred GeV (200 - 300 GeV) while the successful MSSM prediction for gauge coupling unification is preserved. The theories are formulated on a 5D warped space truncated by two branes, and a part of the Higgs sector is localized on the infrared brane. The structure of the Higgs sector in the four dimensional effective theory below the Kaluza-Klein mass scale is essentially that of the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM), or related theories. However, large values of the …
We study the infrared perturbative properties of a class of non supersymmetric gauge theories with the same field content of N=4 Super Yang-Mills and we show that the N=4 supersymmetric model represents an IR unstable fixed point for the renormalization group equations.
We study the one-loop quantum corrections to the U(N) noncommutative supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in three spacetime dimensions (NCSYM$_3$). We show that the cancellation of the dangerous UV/IR infrared divergences only takes place in the fundamental representation of the gauge group. Furthermore, in the one-loop approximation, the would be subleading UV and UV/IR infrared divergences are shown to vanish.
Simulations of supersymmetric field theories with spontaneously broken supersymmetry require in addition to the ultraviolet regularisation also an infrared one, due to the emergence of the massless Goldstino. The intricate interplay between ultraviolet and infrared effects towards the continuum and infinite volume limit demands careful investigations to avoid potential problems. In this paper -- the second in a series of three -- we present such an investigation for ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric quantum mechanics formulated on the lattice in terms of bosonic and fermionic bonds. In one dimension…
We give a pedagogical introduction to the study of supersymmetric partition functions of 3D $\mathcal{N}{=}2$ supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter theories (with an $R$-symmetry) on half-BPS closed three-manifolds---including $S^3$, $S^2 \times S^1$, and any Seifert three-manifold. Three-dimensional gauge theories can flow to non-trivial fixed points in the infrared. In the presence of 3D $\mathcal{N}{=}2$ supersymmetry, many exact results are known about the strongly-coupled infrared, due in good part to powerful localization techniques. We review some of these techniques and emphasize some mor…
We consider the coupling of fermions to the three-dimensional noncommutative $CP^{N-1}$ model. In the case of minimal coupling, although the infrared behavior of the gauge sector is improved, there are dangerous (quadratic) infrared divergences in the corrections to the two point vertex function of the scalar field. However, using superfield techniques we prove that the supersymmetric version of this model with ``antisymmetrized'' coupling of the Lagrange multiplier field is renormalizable up to the first order in $\frac{1}{N}$. The auxiliary spinor gauge field acquires a nontrivial (nonlocal)…
Enhancement of global symmetry and supersymmetry in the infrared is one of the most intriguing phenomena in quantum field theory. We investigate such phenomena in a large class of three dimensional superconformal field theories, known as the S-fold SCFTs. Supersymmetric indices are computed for a number of theories containing small rank gauge groups. It is found that indices of several models exhibit enhancement of supersymmetry at the superconformal fixed point in the infrared. Dualities between S-fold theories that have different quiver descriptions are also analysed. We explore a new class …
