We review important aspects of QCD in the continuum and on the lattice and take a look at the fate of its symmetries with an emphasis on chiral symmetry breaking on the lattice.
Chiral symmetry breaking is calculated as a function of cooling in quenched lattice QCD. A non-zero signal is found for the chiral condensate beyond one hundred cooling steps, suggesting that there is chiral symmetry breaking associated with instantons. Quantitatively, the chiral condensate in cooled gauge field configurations is small compared to the value without cooling.
The CP symmetry is not manifestly implemented for the local and doubler-free Ginsparg-Wilson operator in lattice chiral gauge theory. We precisely identify where the effects of this CP breaking appear.
One of the most challenging issues in QCD is the investigation of spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking, which is characterized by the non-vanishing chiral condensate when the bare fermion mass is zero. In standard methods, one has to perform expensive lattice simulations at multiple bare quark masses, and employ some modeled function to extrapolate the data to the chiral limit. This paper applies the probability distribution function method to computing the chiral condensate in lattice QCD with massless dynamical quarks, without any ambiguous mass extrapolation. The results for staggered quark…
We investigate which momentum components of gluons induce color confinement and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in lattice QCD. For this purpose, we formulate a lattice framework to introduce the momentum cutoff of the gluon field. Using this framework, we calculate the quark-antiquark potential, the color flux tube, the chiral condensate, and the Dirac spectrum. Our results suggest that confinement and chiral symmetry breaking are induced by somehow different momentum components of gluons.
We study the dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry in the 3-d Thirring model for a small number of fermion species. The critical point is identified by fitting lattice data to an equation of state. The spectrum of the theory is studied to confirm the phase structure of the model.
We examine the feasibility of the proposition that there is a temperature range T$_c$ < T < T$_{ch}$ in N$_f$=0 QCD, where real Polyakov line (deconfined) vacuum exhibits valence spontaneous chiral symetry breaking and dynamical chiral polarization of Dirac eigenmodes. Detailed finite-volume analysis convincingly demonstrates the existence of such phase at fixed cutoff (a=0.085 fm). Moreover, it is found that this behavior also takes place closer to the continuum limit (a=0.060 fm) without qualitative change in its properties.
A chiral fermion action allows one to do very clean studies of chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. I will briefly describe how to compute with the overlap action (relatively) cheaply, and then turn to physics: Low modes of the Dirac operator show a ``lumped'' chiral density which peaks at the locations of instantons and anti-instantons. These modes dominate correlation functions at small quark mass in many channels. The picture qualitatively (and in some cases quantitatively) resembles an instanton liquid model.
We calculate the spectral density of the Dirac operator over an ensemble of configurations composed of overlapping instantons and anti-instantons. We find evidence that the spectral density diverges in the limit of small eigenvalues. This indicates the breaking of chiral symmetry and also provides evidence that quenched QCD may be pathological in nature.
We investigate spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in SU(N) gauge theories at large N using overlap fermions. The exact zero modes and the low-lying modes of the Dirac operator provide the tools to gain insight into the interplay between chiral symmetry breaking and topology. We find that topology indeed drives chiral symmetry breaking at N=3 as well as at large N. By comparing the results on various volumes and at different lattice spacings we are able to show that our conclusions are not affected by finite volume effects and also hold in the continuum limit. We then address the question whe…
We analyse - within the hamiltonian formalism with staggered fermions - the patterns of chiral symmetry breaking for the strongly coupled Schwinger and $U({\cal N}_c)$-color `t Hooft models with one and two flavor of fermions. Using the correspondence between these strongly coupled gauge models and antiferromagnetic spin chains, we provide a rather intuitive picture of their ground states, elucidate their patterns of chiral symmetry breaking, and compute the pertinent chiral condensates. Our analysis evidences an intriguing relationship between the values of the lattice chiral condensates of t…
According to the Nielsen-Ninomiya No-Go theorem, the doubling of fermions on the lattice cannot be suppressed in a chiral theory. Whereas Wilson and staggered fermions suppress doublers with explicit breaking of chiral symmetry, the random lattice does so by spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking even in the free theory. I present results for meson masses, the chiral condensate and fermionic eigenvalues from simulations of quenched QCD on random lattices in four dimensions, focusing on chiral symmetry breaking.
Partially quenched chiral perturbation theory assumes that valence quarks propagating on gauge configurations prepared with sea quarks of different masses will form a chiral condensate as the valence quark mass goes to zero. I present a counterexample involving non-degenerate sea quarks where the valence condensate does not form.
We simulate two dimensional QED with two degenerate Wilson fermions and plaquette gauge action. As a consequence of the Mermin-Wagner theorem, in the continuum limit chiral symmetry is realized a la Wigner. This property affects also the size of the cutoff effects. That can be understood in view of the fact that the leading lattice artifacts are described, in the continuum Symanzik effective theory, by chirality breaking terms. In particular, vacuum expectation values of non-chirality-breaking operators are expected to be O(a) improved in the chiral limit. We provide a numerical confirmation o…
A new multifermion formulation of lattice QCD is proposed. The model is free of spectrum doubling and preserves all nonanomalous chiral symmetries up to exponentially small corrections. It is argued that a small number of fermion fields may provide a good approximation making computer simulations feasible.
We investigate the chiral properties of near-zero modes for thick classical center vortices in SU (2) lattice gauge theory as examples of the phenomena which may arise in a vortex vacuum. In particular we analyze the creation of near-zero modes from would-be zero modes of various topological charge contributions from center vortices. We show that classical colorful spherical vortex and instanton ensembles have almost identical Dirac spectra and the low-lying eigenmodes from spherical vortices show all characteristic properties for chiral symmetry breaking. We further show that also vortex inte…
We analyze which momentum component of the gluon field induces spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in lattice QCD. After removing the high-momentum or low-momentum component of the gluon field, we calculate the chiral condensate and observe the roles of these momentum components. The chiral condensate is found to be drastically reduced by removing the zero-momentum gluon. The reduction is about 40% of the total in our calculation condition. The nonzero-momentum infrared gluon also has a sizable contribution to the chiral condensate. From the Banks-Casher relation, this result reflects the non…
In a numerical Monte Carlo simulation of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with dynamical gauginos we find evidence for two degenerate ground states at the supersymmetry point corresponding to zero gaugino mass. This is consistent with the expected pattern of spontaneous discrete chiral symmetry breaking $Z_4 \to Z_2$ caused by gaugino condensation.
We present some of the reasoning and results substantiating the notion that spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking (SChSB) in QCD is encoded in local chiral properties of Dirac eigenmodes. Such association is possible when viewing chirality as a dynamical effect, measured with respect to the benchmark of statistically independent left-right components. Following this rationale leads to describing local chiral behavior by a taylor-made correlation, namely the recently introduced correlation coefficient of polarization C_A. In this language, correlated modes (C_A>0) show dynamical preference for l…
The enhancement of the fermionic condensate due to the presence of both homogeneous and non-homogeneous external magnetic fields is studied for three-dimensional QED.
It has recently been found that dynamics of pure glue QCD supports the low energy band of Dirac modes with local chiral properties qualitatively different from that of a bulk: while bulk modes suppress chirality relative to statistical independence between left and right, the band modes enhance it. The width of such chirally polarized zone - chiral polarization scale Lambda_ch - has been shown to be finite in the continuum limit at fixed physical volume. Here we present evidence that Lambda_ch remains non-zero also in the infinite volume, and is therefore a dynamical scale in the theory. Our e…
Chiral symmetry breaking parameters are calculated in quenched SU(2) gauge theory and with Abelian gauge fields projected in maximal Abelian gauge and in field strength gauge. Maximal Abelian gauge projected fields lead to chiral condensate values which are quite similar to those of the full nonabelian theory. Pseudoscalar and vector meson correlators are calculated and found to be reproduced by the use of maximal Abelian gauge fields for small quark masses. In field-strength gauge, Abelian-projected fields give a chiral condensate which closely resembles the results of strongly coupled ($β<1$…
It has been conjectured that spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in strongly coupled vectorlike gauge theories falls into only three different classes, depending on the gauge group and the representations carried by the fermions. We test this proposal by studying SU(2), SU(3) and SU(4) lattice gauge theories with staggered fermions in different irreducible representations. Staggered fermions away from the continuum limit should, for all complex representations, still belong to the continuum class of spontaneous symmetry breaking. But for all real and pseudo-real representations we show that s…
In this paper we study how dynamical chiral symmetry breaking is affected by nonzero chiral chemical potential in Dirac semimetals. To perform this study we applied lattice quantum Monte Carlo simulations of Dirac semimetals. Within lattice simulation we calculated the chiral condensate for various fermion masses, the chiral chemical potentials and effective coupling constants. For all parameters under consideration we have found that the chiral condensate is enhanced by chiral chemical potential. Thus our results confirms that in Dirac semimetals the chiral chemical potential plays a role of …
Considering a self-interaction only of mirror fermions in the context of a lattice-regularized fermion field theory, we show that the system undergoes spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and mirror-fermion masses are generated. However, it is explicitly shown that there are no Goldstone bosons appearing together with this spontaneous symmetry breaking phenomenon, since Lorentz invariance, one of very general prerequisites of the Goldstone theorem, is violated. The result and its possible application are briefly discussed.
We propose a method for implementing the large-Nc, large-Nf limit of QCD at the effective Lagrangian level. Depending on the value of the ratio Nf/Nc, different patterns of chiral symmetry breaking can arise, leading in particular to different behaviors of the eta-prime mass in the combined large-N limit.
I review recent progress achieved on the lattice in the quantitative comprehension of chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. Emphasis is given to the recent precise computations of the spectral density of the Dirac operator in the continuum limit, and of the topological susceptibility.
We analytically study the relation between quark confinement and spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking in QCD. In terms of the Dirac eigenmodes, we derive some formulae for the Polyakov loop, its fluctuations, and the string tension from the Wilson loop. We also investigate the Polyakov loop in terms of the eigenmodes of the Wilson, the clover and the domain wall fermion kernels, respectively. For the confinement quantities, the low-lying Dirac/fermion eigenmodes are found to give negligible contribution, while they are essential for chiral symmetry breaking. These relations indicate no direct …
We report on a mean-field study of spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry for Dirac fermions with contact interactions in the presence of chiral imbalance, which is modelled by nonzero chiral chemical potential. We point out that chiral imbalance lowers the vacuum energy of Dirac fermions, which leads to the increase of the renormalized chiral chemical potential upon chiral symmetry breaking. The critical coupling strength for the transition to the broken phase is slightly lowered as the chiral chemical potential is increased, and the transition itself becomes milder. Furthermore, we study th…
The breaking of chiral symmetry in holographic light-front QCD is encoded in its longitudinal dynamics with its chiral limit protected by the superconformal algebraic structure which governs its transverse dynamics. The scale in the longitudinal light-front Hamiltonian determines the confinement strength in this direction: It is also responsible for most of the light meson ground state mass consistent with the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner constraint. Longitudinal confinement and the breaking of chiral symmetry are found to be different manifestations of the same underlying dynamics as found in 't Ho…
We propose a novel lattice calculation of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QED model with 2+1 dimensional fermion brane. Considering the relativistic action with gauge symmetry we rigorously carry out path integral in Monte-Carlo simulation with Fermi-velocity relevant to effective coupling constant. We numerically show the evidence of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in strong coupling region with chiral condensate, low-lying mode distribution and Nambu-Goldstone boson spectrum in bare Fermi-velocty $v=0.1$. This is a feasible study to investigate the phase structure of Graphene.
We discuss spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and quark bilinear condensate in large $N_c$ QCD. It has been known that the existence of $η'$ meson is implied in large $N_c$ QCD as pointed out by Witten and Veneziano. First, we show that the existence of $η'$ and Ward-Takahashi identities imply the existence of the Nambu-Goldstone bosons from chiral symmetry breaking $SU(N_f)_L \times SU(N_f)_R \to SU(N_f)_V$. Second, we show that a QCD inequality implies a nonzero lower bound on the quark bilinear condensate.
A key question to QCD is what mechanism generates the hadron mass in the light quark sector, where both confinement and chiral symmetry breaking are in the game. Are confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum uniquely interconnected? Can hadrons survive chiral symmetry restoration? If yes, what happens with their mass and what symmetries beyond the chiral symmetry are there? We review our recent insights. In particular, in a dynamical lattice simulation we artificially restore chiral symmetry by removing the low-lying Dirac modes of the valence quark propagators, which is a well de…
We present numerical evidence for the hypothesis that, in the planar limit, four dimensional Euclidean Yang-Mills theory on a finite symmetrical four-torus breaks chiral symmetry spontaneously when the length of the sides l is larger than a critical value l_c with a bilinear condensate whose value is independent of l. Therefore spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs at finite volume and infinite N_c reduction holds for the chiral condensate.
A quantitative study of the effects of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking on the mass generation of the low-lying hadrons in a dynamical lattice QCD simulation is presented. The evolution of light hadron masses upon increasing the number of low-lying Dirac operator eigenmodes in the quark propagators is confronted with the hadron masses obtained upon removal of such low-lying eigenmodes from standard full quark propagators. The low-lying chiral symmetry breaking modes provide roughly two third of the nucleon and $ρ$ masses, while the $a_1$ mass is affected to a much smaller degree.
This is the second paper of the series aimed at understanding the ensemble of instanton-dyons, now with two flavors of light dynamical quarks. The partition function is appended by the fermionic factor, $(det T)^{N_f}$ and Dirac eigenvalue spectra at small values are derived from the numerical simulation of 64 and 128 dyons. Those spectra show clear chiral symmetry breaking pattern at high dyon density.
Chiral Symmetry Breaking (CSB) is derived in QCD starting from the QCD Lagrangian and using Field Correlators Method (FCM). The kernel in the resulting equations responsible for CSB is directly connected to confinement, and therefore both phenomena occur and vanish together as supported by lattice data. Chiral Lagrangian and quark-meson Lagrangian are derived with explicit coefficients and compared to standard expressions. Spectrum of Nambu-Goldstone mesons and their radial excitations is calculated in good agreement with experiment.
We investigate the effect of a uniform background magnetic field on the chiral symmetry breaking in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory on the lattice. We observe that the chiral condensate grows linearly with the field strength B up to \sqrt{e B} = 3 GeV as predicted by chiral perturbation theory for full QCD. As the temperature increases the coefficient in front of the linear term gets smaller. In the magnetic field near-zero eigenmodes of the Dirac operator tend to have more regular structure with larger (compared to zero-field case) Hausdorff dimensionality. We suggest that the delocalization of near-…
Chiral symmetry of the 2-dimensional chiral Gross-Neveu model is broken explicitly by a bare mass term as well as a splitting of scalar and pseudo-scalar coupling constants. The vacuum and light hadrons - mesons and baryons which become massless in the chiral limit - are explored analytically in leading order of the derivative expansion by means of a double sine-Gordon equation. Depending on the parameters, this model features new phenomena as compared to previously investigated 4-fermion models: spontaneous breaking of parity, a non-trivial chiral vacuum angle, twisted kink-like baryons whose…
We study the relation between quark confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. Using lattice QCD formalism, we analytically express the various "confinement indicators", such as the Polyakov loop, its fluctuations, the Wilson loop, the inter-quark potential and the string tension, in terms of the Dirac eigenmodes. In the Dirac spectral representation, there appears a power of the Dirac eigenvalue $λ_n$ such as $λ_n^{N_t-1}$, which behaves as a reduction factor for small $λ_n$. Consequently, since this reduction factor cannot be cancelled, the low-lying Dirac eigenmodes give negligibly sm…
We find the spectrum and wave functions of the heavy-light mesons in $(1 + 1)$-dimensional QCD in the 't Hooft limit, both in the rest frame, using the Coulomb (axial) gauge, and on the light cone. Our emphasis is on the effects of chiral symmetry breaking on the spectrum. While dynamical equations in both cases look different, the results for the spectrum are identical. The chiral symmetry breaking is clearly seen from the gap and Bethe--Salpeter equations in the laboratory frame. At the same time, while vacuum is trivial on the light cone (no chiral condensate), the effects of the spontaneou…
The occurrence of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking (SChSB) is equivalent to sufficient abundance of Dirac near-zeromodes. However, dynamical mechanism leading to breakdown of chiral symmetry should be naturally reflected in chiral properties of the modes. Here we offer such connection, presenting evidence that SChSB in QCD proceeds via the appearance of modes exhibiting dynamical tendency for local chiral polarization. These modes form a band of finite width Lambda_ch (chiral polarization scale) around the surface of otherwise anti--polarized Dirac sea, and condense. Lambda_ch characterize…