We present a direct Monte-Carlo determination of the scaling dimension of a topological defect operator in the infrared fixed point of a three-dimensional interacting quantum field theory. For this, we compute the free energy to introduce the background gauge field of the $Q=1$ monopole-antimonopole pair in three-dimensional non-compact QED with $N=2,4$ and $12$ flavors of massless two-component fermions, and study its asymptotic logarithmic dependence on the monopole-antimonopole separation. We estimate the scaling dimension in the $N=12$ case to be consistent with the large-$N$ (free fermion) value. We find the deviations from this large-$N$ value for $N=2$ and $4$ are positive but small, implying that the higher order corrections in the large-$N$ expansion become mildly important for $N=2,4$.
We study a three-dimensional non-compact QED with a single two-component massless fermion and two infinitely massive regulator fermions of half the charge using lattice overlap formalism. The parity anomaly is expected to cancel exactly between the massless and regulator fermions in the continuum, but this cancellation is inexact on lattice akin to lattice chiral gauge theories. We show non-perturbatively that parity-breaking terms vanish in the continuum limit at any finite volume. We present numerical evidences that the resulting parity-invariant theory spontaneously breaks parity in the inf…
We use lattice regularization to study the flow of the flavor-triplet fermion current central charge $C^f_J$ from its free field value in the ultraviolet limit to its conformal value in the infrared limit of the parity-invariant three-dimensional QED with two flavors of two-component fermions. The dependence of $C^f_J$ on the scale is weak with a tendency to be below the free field value at intermediate distances. Our numerical data suggests that the flavor-triplet fermion current and the topological current correlators become degenerate within numerical errors in the infra-red limit, thereby …
We use canonical formalism to study the fermion determinant in different three dimensional abelian gauge field backgrounds that contain non-zero magnetic and electric flux in order to understand the non-perturbative contributions to the parity-odd and parity-even parts of the phase. We show that a certain phase associated with free fermion propagation along a closed path in a momentum torus is responsible for the parity anomaly in a background with non-zero electric flux. We consider perturbations around backgrounds with non-zero magnetic flux to understand the structure of the parity-breaking…
We present numerical evidences using overlap fermions for a scale-invariant behavior of parity-invariant three-dimensional QED with two flavors of massless two-component fermions. Using finite-size scaling of the low-lying eigenvalues of the massless anti-Hermitian overlap Dirac operator, we rule out the presence of bilinear condensate and estimate the mass anomalous dimension. The eigenvectors associated with these low-lying eigenvalues suggest critical behavior in the sense of a metal-insulator transition. We show that there is no mass gap in the scalar and vector correlators in the infinite…
We investigate numerically the effect of regulating fermions in the presence of singular background fields in three dimensions. For this, we couple free lattice fermions to a background compact U(1) gauge field consisting of a monopole-anti-monopole pair of magnetic charge $\pm Q$ separated by a distance $s$ in a periodic $L^3$ lattice, and study the low-lying eigenvalues of different lattice Dirac operators under a continuum limit defined by taking $L\to\infty$ at fixed $s/L$. As the background gauge field is parity even, we look for a two-fold degeneracy of the Dirac spectrum that is expecte…
We present our numerical study of three-dimensional QED with 2, 4, 6 and 8 flavors of massless two-component fermions using a parity-preserving lattice regularization with Wilson fermions. We study the behavior of low-lying eigenvalues of the massless improved Wilson-Dirac operator as a function of three-dimensional physical volume, after taking the continuum limit at fixed physical volumes. We find the following evidences against the presence of bilinear condensate: the eigenvalues do not scale as the inverse of the three-dimensional physical volume, and the number variance associated with th…
We present the results of a conformal bootstrap study of the presumed unitary IR fixed point of quantum electrodynamics in three dimensions (QED$_3$) coupled to $N_f=4$ two-component Dirac fermions. Specifically, we study the four-point correlators of the $SU(4)$ adjoint fermion bilinear $r$ and the monopole of lowest topological charge $\mathcal{M}_{1/2}$. Most notably, the scaling dimensions of the fermion bilinear $r$ and the monopole $\mathcal{M}_{1/2}$ are found to be constrained into a closed island with a combination of spectrum assumptions inspired by the $1/N_f$ perturbative results a…
Unconstrained compact lattice QED$_{2+1}$ coupled to phonons: Gauss sectors, orthogonal semimetal, and deconfined criticality
Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universität Würzburg（维尔茨堡大学理论物理与天体物理研究所）；Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat（维尔茨堡-德累斯顿卓越集群ctd.qmat）
Quantum fluctuations lead to an anomalous violation of parity symmetry in quantum electrodynamics for an even number of spatial dimensions. While the leading parity-odd electric current vanishes in vacuum, we uncover a non-cancellation of the anomaly for strong electric fields with distinct macroscopic signatures. We perform real-time lattice simulations with fully dynamical gauge fields and Wilson fermions in $2+1$ space-time dimensions. In the static field limit, relevant at early times, we solve the problem analytically. Our results point out the fundamental role of quantum anomalies for st…
The lattice Landau gauge photon propagator for the pure gauge theory is revisited using large lattices. For the confined case we show that it has an associated linearly growing potential, it has a mass gap, that is related to the presence of monopoles, and its spectral function violates positivity. In the deconfined phase, our simulations suggest that a free field theory is recovered in the thermodynamic limit.
