We present lattice Monte Carlo evidence of stable excitations of isolated static charges in the Higgs phase of the charge $q=2$ abelian Higgs model. These localized excitations are excited states of the interacting fields surrounding the static charges. Since the $q=2$ abelian Higgs model is a relativistic version of the Landau-Ginzburg effective action of a superconductor, we conjecture that excited states of this kind might be relevant in a condensed matter context. Taken together with recent related work in SU(3) gauge Higgs theory, our result suggests that a massive fermion excitation spectrum may be a general feature of gauge Higgs theories.
In this report, I discuss lattice Monte Carlo evidence of excitations of isolated static charges in q=2 Abelian Higgs theory. The localized excitations are excited states of the interacting fields surrounding the static charges.
A spectrum of localized excitations of isolated static fermions has been discovered in several different gauge Higgs theories. In lattice numerical simulations, we show that the charged elementary particles can have the spectrum of excitations in the Higgs phase of SU(3) gauge Higgs theory, $q=2$ Abelian Higgs theory, Landau-Ginzburg theory, and in chiral U(1) gauge Higgs theory. Possibly these excited states of the isolated fermions can be observed in ARPES studies of conventional superconductors. Also, we consider that similar kinds of excitations could exist in other gauge Higgs theories, s…
We study the structure of the isolated static monopoles in the maximal Abelian projection of SU(2) lattice gluodynamics. Our estimation of the monopole radius is $ \approx 0.06 fm$.
We discuss the Aharonov--Bohm effect in three and four dimensional non--compact lattice Abelian Higgs model. We show analytically that this effect leads to the long--range Coulomb interaction of the charged particles, which is confining in three dimensions. The Aharonov--Bohm effect is found in numerical calculations in 3D Abelian Higgs model.
The confining and topological properties of the compact Abelian Higgs model with doubly-charged Higgs field in three space-time dimensions are studied. We consider the London limit of the model. We show that the monopoles are forming chain-like structures (kept together by ANO vortices) the presence of which is essential for getting simultaneously permanent confinement of singly-charged particles and breaking of the string spanned between doubly-charged particles. In the confinement phase the chains are forming percolating clusters while in the deconfinement (Higgs) phase the chains are of fin…
We explore the phase diagram of the 5--D anisotropic Abelian Higgs model by Monte Carlo simulations. In particular, we study the transition between the confining phase and the four dimensional layered Higgs phase. We find that, in a certain region of the lattice parameter space, this transition can be first order and that each layer moves into the Higgs phase independently of the others (decoupling of layers).
We study the Abelian Higgs Model using an improved form of the action in the scalar sector. The subleading corrections are carefully analysed and the connection between lattice and continuous parameters is worked out. The simulation shows a remarkable improvement of the numerical performance.
The abelian Higgs model is studied on the lattice with charge conjugate boundary conditions. A locally gauge invariant operator for the charged scalar field is constructed and the charged scalar particle mass is calculated in the Coulomb phase of the lattice model. Agreement is found with the mass calculated in Coulomb gauge. The gauge invariant scalar field operator is used to calculate the Higgs boson mass in the Higgs region and to show that the charged particle disappears from the spectrum in the confined regime.
We find 3-brane Higgs and Coulomb phases in the 5D Abelian Higgs Model and determine the transition surfaces that separate them from the usual bulk phases.
We compute the sphaleron transition rate in the 1+1 dimensional abelian Higgs model at finite temperature, by real time simulation using the classical canonical ensemble.
In World Line Path Integral representation Abelian Higgs theories admit a curvature term in the Hamiltonian. Using Monte Carlo simulations we show that the curvature term drives a phase transition at sufficiently strong coupling. In quenched approximation this phase transition is smooth, with implications that the model reduces to a Goldstone theory. Critical properties of the system near the transition are investigated and found to be consistent with mean field behavior.
We study the properties of topological defects in the lattice compact Abelian Higgs Model with charge Q=2 matter field. We find that monopoles and antimonopoles form chain-like structures which are dense in the confinement/symmetric phase. In this phase the mentioned structures explain both the confinement of single-charged and the breaking of strings spanned between doubly-charged test particles. This observation helps to understand how the non-diagonal gluons, once taken into consideration in the Abelian projection of gluodynamics, could reproduce in this framework the string breaking for ad…
In approximate dynamical equations, inhomogenous classical (mean) gauge and Higgs fields are coupled to quantized fermions. The equations are solved numerically on a spacetime lattice. The fermions appear to equilibrate according to the Fermi-Dirac distribution with time-dependent temperature and chemical potential.
The structure of the flux-tube profile in Abelian-projected (AP) SU(2) gauge theory in the maximally Abelian gauge is studied. The connection between the AP flux tube and the classical flux-tube solution of the U(1) dual Abelian Higgs (DAH) model is clarified in terms of the path-integral duality transformation. This connection suggests that the electric photon and the magnetic monopole parts of the Abelian Wilson loop can act as separate sources creating the Coulombic and the solenoidal electric field inside a flux tube. The conjecture is confirmed by a lattice simulation which shows that the…
We study infrared abelian dominance and the dual Higgs mechanism in the maximally abelian (MA) gauge using the lattice QCD Monte Carlo simulation. In the MA gauge, the off-diagonal gluon phase tends to be random, and the off-diagonal gluon $A_μ^\pm$ acquires the effective mass as $M_{\rm off} \simeq$ 1.2 GeV. From the monopole current in the MA gauge, we extract the dual gluon field $B_μ$ and estimate the dual gluon mass as $m_B \simeq $ 0.5 GeV. The QCD-monopole structure is also investigated in terms of off-diagonal gluons. From the lattice QCD in the MA gauge, the dual Ginzburg-Landau (DGL)…
The non-compact lattice version of the Abelian Higgs model is studied in terms of its topological excitations. The Villain form of the partition function is represented as a sum over world-sheets of gauge-invariant ``vortex'' strings. The phase transition of the system is then related to the density of these excitations. Through Monte Carlo simulations the density of the vortex sheets is shown to be a good order parameter for the system. The vortex density essentially vanishes in the Higgs phase, and the Coulomb phase consists of a single vortex condensate.
We establish the phase diagram of the five-dimensional anisotropic Abelian Higgs model by mean field techniques and Monte Carlo simulations. The anisotropy is encoded in the gauge couplings as well as in the Higgs couplings. In addition to the usual bulk phases (confining, Coulomb and Higgs) we find four-dimensional ``layered'' phases (3-branes) at weak gauge coupling, where the layers may be in either the Coulomb or the Higgs phase, while the transverse directions are confining.
Numerical minimization of the Euclidean action of the two-dimensional Abelian Higgs model is used to construct periodic instantons, the euclidean field configurations with two turning points describing transitions between the vicinities of topologically distinct vacua. Periodic instantons are found at any energy ( up to the sphaleron energy $E_{sph}$ ) and for wide range of parameters of the theory. We obtain the dependence of the action and the energy of periodic instanton on its period; these quantities directly determine the probability of certain multiparticle scattering events.
We present the surface worm algorithm (SWA) which is a generalization of the Prokof'ev Svistunov worm algorithm to perform the simulation of the dual representation (surfaces and loops) of Abelian gauge-Higgs models on a lattice. We compare the SWA to a local Metropolis update in the dual representation and show that the SWA outperforms the local update for a wide range of parameters.
We study a field--theoretical analogue of the Aharonov--Bohm effect in the 3D Abelian Higgs Model: the corresponding topological interaction is proportional to the linking number of the vortex and the particle world trajectories. We show that the Aharonov--Bohm effect gives rise to a nontrivial interaction of tested charged particles.
We give arguments that in the 1+1 dimensional abelian Higgs model the classical approximation can be good for the leading high temperature behavior of real time processes. The Chern-Simons diffusion rate (`sphaleron rate') is studied numerically in this approximation. New results at high temperature show a $T^{2/3}$ behavior of the rate at sufficiently small lattice spacing.
We explore the phase diagram of the five-dimensional anisotropic Abelian Higgs model by Monte Carlo simulations. In particular, we study the transition between the confining phase and the four dimensional layered Higgs phase. We find that, in a certain region of the lattice parameter space, this transition can be first order and that each layer moves into the Higgs phase independently of the others (decoupling of layers). As the Higgs couplings vary, we find, using mean field techniques, that this transition may probably become second order.
We study the phase structure of a three dimensional Abelian Higgs model with singly- and doubly-charged scalar fields coupled to a compact Abelian gauge field. The model is pretending to describe systems of strongly correlated electrons such as high-Tc superconductivity in overdoped regime and exotic phases supporting excitations with fractionalized quantum numbers. We identify the Fermi liquid, the spin gap, the superconductor and the strange metallic phases in which densities and properties of holon and spinon vortices and monopoles are explored. The phase diagram in the 3D coupling space is…
Smeared Abelian and center gauges are introduced in pure non-Abelian lattice gauge theories. Popular Abelian and center gauges are limits of smeared gauges. Smeared gauges are also shown to be equivalent to Higgs theories. As a result, distributions and interactions of monopoles and vortices, which are objects responsible for confinement in pure gauge theories, can be studied by investigating classical solutions of Higgs theories.
We have studied the monopole-percolation phenomenon in the four dimensional Abelian theory that contains compact U(1) gauge fields coupled to unitary norm Higgs fields. We have determined the location of the percolation transition line in the plane $(β_g, β_H)$. This line overlaps the confined-Coulomb and the confined-Higgs phase transition lines, originated by a monopole-condensation mechanism, but continues away from the end-point where this phase transition line stops. In addition, we have determined the critical exponents of the monopole percolation transition away from the phase transitio…
The partition function of the $4D$ lattice Abelian Higgs theory is represented as the sum over world sheets of Nielsen--Olesen strings. The creation and annihilation operators of the strings are constructed. The topological long--range interaction of the strings and charged particles is shown to exist; it is proportional to the linking number of the string world sheet and particle world trajectory.
We consider interaction of a probe monopole-antimonopole pair in the vacuum of the Abelian Higgs model. For simplicity, the mass of the Higgs particle is assumed to be much larger than the mass of the photon (London limit). In case of a massive photon the straightforward application of the Zwanziger formalism to accommodate both magnetic and electric charges is known to result in gauge dependence and infrared instabilities. We argue that the use of the string representation of the Abelian Higgs model allows to ameliorate both difficulties. In particular, we arrive at a well defined expression …
We present an evaluation of the fluctuation determinant which appears as a prefactor in the instanton transition rate for the two-dimensional Abelian Higgs model. The corrections are found to change the rate at most by a factor of 2 for 0.4 < M_W/M_H < 2.0.
We study the breaking of the string spanned between test charges in the three dimensional Abelian Higgs model with compact gauge field and fundamentally charged Higgs field at zero temperature. In agreement with current expectations we demonstrate that string breaking is associated with pairing of monopoles. However, the string breaking is not accompanied by an ordinary phase transition.
We study the two-dimensional lattice multicomponent Abelian-Higgs model, which is a lattice compact U(1) gauge theory coupled with an N-component complex scalar field, characterized by a global SU(N) symmetry. In agreement with the Mermin-Wagner theorem, the model has only a disordered phase at finite temperature and a critical behavior is only observed in the zero-temperature limit. The universal features are investigated by numerical analyses of the finite-size scaling behavior in the zero-temperature limit. The results show that the renormalization-group flow of the 2D lattice N-component A…
The Abelian Higgs model with anisotropic couplings in 2+1 dimensions is studied in both the compact and non-compact formulations. Decoupling of the space-like planes takes place in the extreme anisotropic limit, so charged particles and gauge fields are presumably localized within these planes. The behaviour of the model under the influence of an external magnetic field is examined in the compact case and yields further characterization of the phases.
We study the phase structure of the 3D nonlocal compact U(1) lattice gauge theory coupled with a Higgs field by means of Monte-Carlo simulations. The nonlocal interactions among gauge variables are along the temporal direction and mimic the effect of local coupling to massless particles. We found that in contrast to the 3D local abelian Higgs model which has only one phase, the present model exhibits the confinement, Higgs, and Coulomb phases separated by three second-order transition lines emanating from a triple point. This result is quite important for studies on electron fractionalization …
We present a quantum simulation scheme for the Abelian-Higgs lattice gauge theory using ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices. The model contains both gauge and Higgs scalar fields, and exhibits interesting phases related to confinement and the Higgs mechanism. The model can be simulated by an atomic Hamiltonian, by first mapping the local gauge symmetry to an internal symmetry of the atomic system, the conservation of hyperfine angular momentum in atomic collisions. By including auxiliary bosons in the simulation, we show how the Abelian-Higgs Hamiltonian emerges effectively. We analyze…
We investigate numerically the properties of the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen strings in 4D abelian Higgs model. The fractal dimension D_f of the vortex strings was found to be large in the Coulomb phase and it is close to 2 in the Higgs phase. We also show that the Wilson loop for non-integer charges is correlated with the linking number of the vortex string world sheets and the test particle world trajectory. We find that this topological (Aharonov-Bohm) interaction gives the main contribution to the Wilson loop quantum average for non-integer test charges in the vicinity of the Coulomb-Higgs ph…
We study a field--theoretical analogue of the Aharonov--Bohm effect in the Abelian Higgs Model: the corresponding topological interaction is proportional to the linking number of the Abrikosov--Nielsen--Olesen string world sheets and the particle world trajectory. The creation operators of the strings are explicitly constructed in the path integral and in the Hamiltonian formulation of the theory. We show that the Aharonov--Bohm effect gives rise to several nontrivial commutation relations. We also study the Aharonov--Bohm effect in the lattice formulation of the Abelian Higgs Model. It occurs…
We consider the monopole-antimonopole static potential in the confining phase of the Abelian Higgs model and in particular the corrections to the Coulomb-like potential at small distances r. By minimizing numerically the classical energy functional we observe a linear in r, stringy correction even at distances much smaller than the apparent physical scales. We argue that this term is a manifestation of the condition that the monopoles are connected by a mathematically thin line along which the scalar field vanishes. These short strings modify the operator product expansion as well. Implication…
New results for the rate are presented using the canonical ensemble in the classical approximation on a spatial lattice. We find that the rate at high temperatures is proportional to $T^2$, and strongly dependent on the lattice spacing $a$. We conclude that a better effective action is needed for the classical approximation.
We study a field-theoretical analogue of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in two-, three- and four-dimensional Abelian Higgs models; the corresponding topological interaction is proportional to the linking number of the Abrikosov vortex and the particle world trajectories. We show that the Aharonov-Bohm effect gives rise to a nontrivial interaction of charged test particles. The numerical calculations in the three-dimensional model confirm this fact.
We determine the phase diagram of the Abelian-Higgs model in one spatial dimension and time (1+1D) on a lattice. We identify a line of first order phase transitions separating the Higgs region from the confined one. This line terminates in a quantum critical point above which the two regions are connected by a smooth crossover. We analyze the critical point and find compelling evidences for its description as the product of two non-interacting systems, a massless free fermion and a massless free boson. However, we find also some surprizing results that cannot be explained by our simple picture…
