我通过非微扰数值蒙特卡洛模拟，对离散化理论在$3\le N \le 6$范围内进行大$N$确定性研究，利用并行退火于边界条件（PTBC）算法来避免拓扑冻结问题。得益于该算法，我能够探索所有$N$值下的均匀格点间距范围，并比以前使用周期性或开放边界条件的研究更精确地确定$χ$。通过在物理单位下固定平滑半径取连续极限，我还能展示$χ$的连续极限与该选择无关。最后，我提供对新PTBC结果与文献中拓扑易变性确定的全面比较，包括有限$N$和大$N$极限。
英文摘要：
I present a large-$N$ determination of the topological susceptibility $χ$ of $\mathrm{SU}(N)$ Yang--Mills theories using non-perturbative numerical Monte Carlo simulations of the lattice-discretized theory for $3\le N \le 6$, and adopting the Parallel Tempering on Boundary Conditions (PTBC) algorithm to bypass topological freezing for $N>3$. Thanks to this algorithm I am able to explore a uniform range of lattice spacings across all values of $N$, and to precisely determine $χ$ for finer lattice spacings compared to previous studies with periodic or open boundary conditions. By taking the continuum limit at fixed smoothing radius in physical units, I am also able to show the independence of the continuum limit of $χ$ from this choice. I conclude providing a comprehensive comparison of my new PTBC results with previous determinations of the topological susceptibility in the literature, both at finite $N$ and in the large-$N$ limit.
Standard local updating algorithms experience a critical slowing down close to the continuum limit, which is particularly severe for topological observables. In practice, the Markov chain tends to remain trapped in a fixed topological sector. This problem further worsens at large $N$, and is known as $\mathit{topological}~\mathit{freezing}$. To mitigate it, we adopt the parallel tempering on boundary conditions proposed by M. Hasenbusch. This algorithm allows to obtain a reduction of the auto-correlation time of the topological charge up to several orders of magnitude. With this strategy we ar…
We perform large scale simulations to characterize the transition in quenched QCD. It is shown by a rigorous finite size scaling that the transition is of first order. After this qualitative feature quantitative results are obtained with unprecedented precision: we calculate the transition temperature $w_0T_c$=0.25384(23), -- which is the first per-mill accurate result in QCD thermodynamics -- and the latent heat $ΔE/T_c^4$=1.025(21)(27) in both cases carrying out controlled continuum and infinite volume extrapolations. As it is well known the cost of lattice simulations explodes in the vicini…
The topological susceptibility is calculated within the Hamiltonian approach to Yang-Mills theory in Coulomb gauge, using the vacuum wave functional previously determined by a variational solution of the Yang-Mills Schroedinger equation. The numerical result agrees qualitatively with the predictions of lattice simulations.
We determine the topological susceptibility $χ$ at T=0 in pure SU(3) gauge theory and its behaviour at finite $T$ across the deconfining transition. We use an improved topological charge density operator. $χ$ drops sharply by one order of magnitude at the deconfining temperature $T_c$.
QCD with infinite heavy quark masses exhibits a first-order thermal transition which is driven by the spontaneous breaking of the global $\mathcal{Z}_3$ center symmetry. We analyze the corresponding order parameter, namely the Polyakov loop and its moments, and show, with a rigorous finite size scaling, that in the continuum limit the transition is of first order. We show that the use of a parallel tempering algorithm can significantly reduce the large auto-correlation times which are mainly caused by the supercritical slowing down. As a result, we calculate the transition temperature $w_0 T_c…
For Yang-Mills theories in four dimensions, we propose to rescale the ratio between topological susceptibility and string tension squared in a universal way, dependent only on group factors. We apply this suggestion to $SU(N_c)$ and $Sp(N_c)$ groups, and compare lattice measurements performed by several independent collaborations. We show that the two sequences of (rescaled) numerical results in these two families of groups are compatible with each other. We hence perform a combined fit, and extrapolate to the common large-$N_c$ limit.
We calculate the topological susceptibility of the Yang-Mills vacuum using the field correlator method. Our estimate for the SU(3) gauge group, χ^{1/4} = 196(7) MeV, is in a very good agreement with the results of recent numerical simulations of the Yang-Mills theory on the lattice.
A definition of the Pontryagin index for SU(2) center vortex world-surfaces composed of plaquettes on a hypercubic lattice is constructed. It is used to evaluate the topological susceptibility in a previously defined random surface model for vortices, the parameters of which have been fixed such as to reproduce the confinement properties of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. A prediction for the topological susceptibility is obtained which is compatible with measurements of this quantity in lattice Yang-Mills theory.
We compute the topological susceptibility of the SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in the large-N limit with a percent level accuracy. This is achieved by measuring the gradient-flow definition of the susceptibility at three values of the lattice spacing for N=3,4,5,6. Thanks to this coverage of parameter space, we can extrapolate the results to the large-N and continuum limits with confidence. Open boundary conditions are instrumental to make simulations feasible on the finer lattices at the larger N.
The topological susceptibility induced by center projection vortices extracted from SU(2) lattice Yang-Mills configurations via the maximal center gauge is measured. Two different smoothing procedures, designed to eliminate spurious ultraviolet fluctuations of these vortices before evaluating the topological charge, are explored. They result in consistent estimates of the topological susceptibility carried by the physical thick vortices characterizing the Yang-Mills vacuum in the vortex picture. This susceptibility is comparable to the one obtained from the full lattice Yang-Mills configuratio…
Maximal 't Hooft loops are studied in SO(3) lattice gauge theory at finite temperature T. Tunneling barriers among twist sectors causing loss of ergodicity for local update algorithms are overcome through parallel tempering, enabling us to measure the vortex free energy F and to identify a deconfinement transition at some $β_A^{crit}$. The behavior of F below $β_A^{crit}$ shows however striking differences with what is expected from discretizations in the fundamental representation.
The topological susceptibility of the SU(3) random vortex world-surface ensemble, an effective model of infrared Yang-Mills dynamics, is investigated. The model is implemented by composing vortex world-surfaces of elementary squares on a hypercubic lattice, supplemented by an appropriate specification of vortex color structure on the world-surfaces. Topological charge is generated in this picture by writhe and self-intersection of the vortex world-surfaces. Systematic uncertainties in the evaluation of the topological charge, engendered by the hypercubic construction, are discussed. Results fo…
We present the results of a computation of the topological susceptibility in the SU(3) Yang--Mills theory performed by employing the expression of the topological charge density operator suggested by Neuberger's fermions. In the continuum limit we find r_0^4 chi = 0.059(3), which corresponds to chi=(191 \pm 5 MeV)^4 if F_K is used to set the scale. Our result supports the Witten--Veneziano explanation for the large mass of the eta'.
We find that using open boundary condition in the temporal direction can yield the expected value of the topological susceptibility in lattice SU(3) Yang-Mills theory. As a further check, we show that the result agrees with numerical simulations employing the periodic boundary condition. Our results support the preferability of the open boundary condition over the periodic boundary condition as the former allows for computation at smaller lattice spacings needed for continuum extrapolation at a lower computational cost.
The renormalization functions involved in the determination of the topological susceptibility in the SU(2) lattice gauge theory are extracted by direct measurements, without relying on perturbation theory. The determination exploits the phenomenon of critical slowing down to allow the separation of perturbative and non-perturbative effects. The results are in good agreement with perturbative computations.
An ongoing effort to compute the topological susceptibility for the SU(3) Yang-Mills theory in the continuum limit with a precison of about 2% is reported. The susceptibility is computed by using the definition of the charge suggested by Neuberger fermions for two values of the negative mass parameter s. Finite volume and discretization effects are estimated to meet this level of precision. The large statistics required has been obtained by using PCs of the INFN-GRID. Simulations with larger lattice volumes are necessary in order to better understanding the continuum limit at small lattice spa…
In order to check the validity and the range of applicability of the 1/N expansion, we performed numerical simulations of the two-dimensional lattice CP(N-1) models at large N, in particular we considered the CP(20) and the CP(40) models. Quantitative agreement with the large-N predictions is found for the correlation length defined by the second moment of the correlation function, the topological susceptibility and the string tension. On the other hand, quantities involving the mass gap are still far from the large-$N$ results showing a very slow approach to the asymptotic regime. To overcome…
The topological susceptibility is computed in the SU(3) gauge theory at temperatures $T$ above the critical temperature $T_{\rm c}$ using master-field simulations of very large lattices, where the infamous topology-freezing issue is effectively bypassed. Up to $T=2.0\,T_{\rm c}$ no unusually large lattice effects are observed and the results obtained in the continuum limit confirm the expected rapid decay of the susceptibility with increasing temperature. As a byproduct, the reference gradient-flow time $t_0$ is determined in the range of lattice spacings from $0.023$ to $0.1\,{\rm fm}$ with a…
We present a precise computation of the topological susceptibility $χ_{_\mathrm{YM}}$ of SU$(N)$ Yang-Mills theory in the large $N$ limit. The computation is done on the lattice, using high-statistics Monte Carlo simulations with $N=3, 4, 5, 6$ and three different lattice spacings. Two major improvements make it possible to go to finer lattice spacing and larger $N$ compared to previous works. First, the topological charge is implemented through the gradient flow definition; and second, open boundary conditions in the time direction are employed in order to avoid the freezing of the topologica…
We compute the topological susceptibility for the SU(3) Yang--Mills theory by employing the expression of the topological charge density operator suggested by Neuberger's fermions. In the continuum limit we find r_0^4 chi = 0.059(3), which corresponds to chi=(191 +/- 5 MeV)^4 if F_K is used to set the scale. Our result supports the Witten--Veneziano explanation for the large mass of the eta'.
We simulate $4d$ $SU(N)$ pure-gauge theories at large $N$ using a parallel tempering scheme that combines simulations with open and periodic boundary conditions, implementing the algorithm originally proposed by Martin Hasenbusch for $2d$ $CP^{N-1}$ models. That allows to dramatically suppress the topological freezing suffered from standard local algorithms, reducing the autocorrelation time of $Q^2$ up to two orders of magnitude. Using this algorithm in combination with simulations at non-zero imaginary $θ$ we are able to refine state-of-the-art results for the large-$N$ behavior of the quart…
Within the Hamiltonian approach in Coulomb gauge the ghost and gluon propagators are determined from a variational solution of the Yang-Mills Schroedinger equation showing both gluon and heavy quark confinement. The continuum results are in good agreement with lattice data. The ghost form factor is identified as the dielectric function of the Yang-Mills vacuum and a connection between the Gribov-Zwanziger scenario and the dual Meissner effect is established. The topological susceptibility is calculated.
In this paper we investigate, by means of numerical lattice simulations, the topological properties of the trace deformed $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theory defined on $S_1\times\mathbb{R}^3$. More precisely, we evaluate the topological susceptibility and the $b_2$ coefficient (related to the fourth cumulant of the topological charge distribution) of this theory for different values of the lattice spacing and of the compactification radius. In all the cases we find results in good agreement with the corresponding ones of the standard $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theory on $\mathbb{R}^4$.
There are currently two singularity-free universal expressions for the topological susceptibility in QCD, one based on the Yang-Mills gradient flow and the other on density-chain correlation functions. While the latter link the susceptibility to the anomalous chiral Ward identities, the gradient flow permits the emergence of the topological sectors in lattice QCD to be understood. Here the two expressions are shown to coincide in the continuum theory, for any number of quark flavours in the range where the theory is asymptotically free.
We determine the topological susceptibility from center projected vortices and demonstrate that the topological properties of the SU(2) Yang-Mills vacuum can be extracted from the vortex content. We eliminate spurious ultraviolet fluctuations by two different smoothing procedures. The extracted susceptibility is comparable to that obtained from full field configurations.
New results on the topology of the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory are presented. At zero temperature we obtain the value of the topological susceptibility by using the recently introduced smeared operators as well as a properly renormalized geometric definition. Both determinations are in agreement. At non-zero temperature we study the behaviour of the topological susceptibility across the confinement transition pointing out some qualitative differences with respect to the analogous result for the SU(3) gauge theory.
Yang-Mills theory and QCD are well-defined for any Lie group as gauge group. The choice G2 is of great interest, as it is the smallest group with trivial center and being at the same time accessible to simulations. This theory has been found to have many properties in common with SU(3) Yang-Mills theory and QCD, permitting to study the role of the center. Herein, these investigations are extended to topological properties of G2 Yang-Mills theory. After giving the instanton construction for G2, topological lumps with instanton topological charge are identified in cooled lattice configurations. …
We present a measurement of the topological susceptibility in SU(3) Yang-Mills theory through the deconfinement phase transition. An improved operator is used for the topological charge density. A drop by an order of magnitude is observed from the confined to the deconfined phase.
We present a study of the systematic effects in the nonperturbative evaluation of the renormalization constants which appear in the field-theoretical determination of the topological susceptibility in pure Yang-Mills theory. The study is performed by computing the renormalization constants on configurations that have been calibrated by use of the Ginsparg-Wilson formalism and by cooling.
In this contribution, we report on our study of the properties of the Wilson flow and on the calculation of the topological susceptibility of $Sp(N_c)$ gauge theories for $N_c=2,\,4,\,6,\,8$. The Wilson flow is shown to scale according to the quadratic Casimir operator of the gauge group, as was already observed for $SU(N_c)$, and the commonly used scales $t_0$ and $w_0$ are obtained for a large interval of the inverse coupling for each probed value of $N_c$. The continuum limit of the topological susceptibility is computed and we conjecture that it scales with the dimension of the group. The …
It is shown that an effective theory with meron degrees of freedom produces confinement in SU(2) Yang Mills theory. This effective theory is compatible with center symmetry. When the scale is set by the string tension, the action density and topological susceptibility are similar to those arising in lattice QCD.
The topological charge is constructed for SU(3) center vortex world-surfaces composed of elementary squares on a hypercubic lattice. In distinction to the SU(2) case investigated previously, it is necessary to devise a proper treatment of the color structure at vortex branchings, which arise in the SU(3) case, but not for SU(2). The construction is used to evaluate the topological susceptibility in the random vortex world-surface model of infrared Yang-Mills dynamics. Results for the topological susceptibility are reported as a function of temperature, including both the confined as well as th…
We determine the topological susceptibility χat T=0 and its behaviour at finite T across the deconfining transition in pure SU(2) gauge theory. We use an improved topological charge density operator. χgoes to zero above T_c, but more slowly than in SU(3) gauge theory.
In commonly used Monte Carlo algorithms for lattice gauge theories the integrated autocorrelation time of the topological charge is known to be exponentially-growing as the continuum limit is approached. This $\mathit{topological}\,\,\textit{freezing}$, whose severity increases with the size of the gauge group, can result in potentially large systematics. To provide a direct quantification of the latter, we focus on $\mathrm{SU}(6)$ Yang--Mills theory at a lattice spacing for which conventional methods associated to the decorrelation of the topological charge have an unbearable computational c…
Knowledge of the derivative of the topological susceptibility at zero momentum is important for assessing the validity of the Witten-Veneziano formula for the eta' mass, and likewise for the resolution of the EMC proton spin problem. We investigate the momentum dependence of the topological susceptibility and its derivative at zero momentum using overlap fermions in quenched lattice QCD simulations. We expose the role of the low-lying Dirac eigenmodes for the topological charge density, and find a negative value for the derivative. While the sign of the derivative is consistent with the QCD su…
A model for the infrared sector of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, based on magnetic vortices represented by (closed) random surfaces, is presented. The model quantitatively describes both confinement (including the finite-temperature transition to a deconfined phase) and the topological susceptibility of the Yang-Mills ensemble. A first (quenched) study of the spectrum of the Dirac operator furthermore yields a behavior for the chiral condensate which is compatible with results obtained in lattice gauge theory.
We show that the magnetic monopole promoted to the dyon due to the vacuum angle $θ$ resolves the U(1) problem in the sense that the dyon obtained in this way gives a dominant contribution to the topological susceptibility. For this purpose, we derive an Abelian-projected effective gauge theory written in terms of Abelian degrees of freedom, which is obtained by integrating out all the off-diagonal degrees of freedom involved in the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with the vacuum angle $θ$. We evaluate the topological susceptibility by estimating the classical part of the effective dyon action obtained…
A model for the infrared sector of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, based on magnetic vortex degrees of freedom represented by (closed) random world-surfaces, is presented. The model quantitatively describes both the confinement properties (including the finite-temperature transition to a deconfined phase) and the topological susceptibility of the Yang-Mills ensemble. A (quenched) study of the spectrum of the Dirac operator furthermore yields a behavior for the chiral condensate which is compatible with results obtained in lattice gauge theory.
We summarise the latest results of our collaboration concerning N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions on the lattice. We investigate the expected formation of supersymmetric multiplets of the lightest particles and the behaviour of the topological susceptibility approaching the supersymmetric limit of the theory.
The chiral magnetization properties of cold and hot vacua are studied using quenched simulations in lattice Yang-Mills theory. In weak external magnetic fields the magnetization is proportional to the first power of the magnetic field. We evaluate numerically the coefficient of the proportionality (the chiral susceptibility) using near-zero eigenmodes of overlap fermions. We found that the product of the chiral susceptibility and the chiral condensate equals to 46(3) MeV. This value is very close to the phenomenological value of 50 MeV. In strong fields the magnetization is a nonlinear functio…
For field theories with a topological charge Q, it is often of interest to measure the topological susceptibility chi_t = ( < Q^2 > - < Q >^2 ) / V. If we manage to perform a Monte Carlo simulation where Q changes frequently, chi_t can be evaluated directly. However, for local update algorithms and fine lattices, the auto-correlation time with respect to Q tends to be extremely long, which invalidates the direct approach. Nevertheless, the measurement of chi_t is still feasible, even when the entire Markov chain is topologically frozen. We test a method for this purpose, based on the correlati…
We propose a novel approach to the confinement-deconfinement transition in Yang-Mills theories in the context of gauge-fixed calculations. The method is based on a background-field generalisation of the Landau gauge (to which it reduces at vanishing temperature) with a given, center-symmetric background. This is to be contrasted with most implementations of background field methods in gauge theories, where one uses a variable, self-consistent background. Our proposal is a bona fide gauge fixing that can easily be implemented on the lattice and in continuum approaches. The resulting gauge-fixed…
In Yang-Mills theory, the cumulants of the naïve lattice discretization of the topological charge evolved with the Yang-Mills gradient flow coincide, in the continuum limit, with those of the universal definition. We sketch in these proceedings the main points of the proof. By implementing the gradient-flow definition in numerical simulations, we report the results of a precise computation of the second and the fourth cumulant of the $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ Yang-Mills theory topological charge distribution, in order to measure the deviation from Gaussianity. A range of high-statistics Monte Carlo sim…
The infrared structure of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory is studied by means of lattice gauge simulations using a new constrained cooling technique. This method reduces the action while all Polyakov lines on the lattice remain unchanged. In contrast to unconstrained cooling, quark confinement is still intact. A study of the Hessian of the Yang-Mills action shows that low action (semi-) classical configurations can be achieved, with a characteristic splitting between collective modes and higher momentum modes. Besides confinement, the semiclassical configurations also support the topological susceptib…
We study $θ$ dependence of the vacuum energy for the 4d SU(2) pure Yang-Mills theory by lattice numerical simulations. The response of topological excitations to the smearing procedure is investigated in detail, in order to extract topological information from smeared gauge configurations. We determine the first two coefficients in the $θ$ expansion of the vacuum energy, the topological susceptibility $χ$ and the first dimensionless coefficient $b_2$, in the continuum limit. We find consistency of the SU(2) results with the large $N$ scaling. By analytic continuing the number of colors, $N$, t…
The Dirac operator describing the coupling of continuum quark fields to SU(2) center vortex world-surfaces composed of elementary squares on a hypercubic lattice is constructed. It is used to evaluate the quenched Dirac spectral density in the random vortex world-surface model, which previously has been shown to quantitatively reproduce both the confinement properties and the topological susceptibility of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. Under certain conditions on the modeling of the vortex gauge field, a behavior of the quenched chiral condensate as a function of temperature is obtained which is con…
We present a precise computation of the topological charge distribution in the $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theory. It is carried out on the lattice with high statistics Monte Carlo simulations by employing the clover discretization of the field strength tensor combined with the Yang-Mills gradient flow. The flow equations are integrated numerically by a fourth-order structure-preserving Runge-Kutta method. We have performed simulations at four lattice spacings and several lattice sizes to remove with confidence the systematic errors in the second (topological susceptibility $χ_t^\text{YM}$) and the fou…
In lattice calculations, the approach to the continuum limit is hindered by the severe freezing of the topological charge, which prevents ergodic sampling in configuration space. In order to significantly reduce the autocorrelation time of the topological charge, we develop a density of states approach with a smooth constraint and use it to study SU(3) pure Yang Mills gauge theory near the continuum limit. Our algorithm relies on simulated tempering across a range of couplings, which guarantees the decorrelation of the topological charge and ergodic sampling of topological sectors. Particular …
We discuss the extension of the field theoretical approach, already used in the lattice determination of the topological susceptibility, to the computation of further terms in the expansion of the ground state energy $F(θ)$ around $θ= 0$ in SU(N) Yang-Mills theories. In particular we determine the fourth order term in the expansion for SU(3) pure gauge theory and compare our results with previous cooling determinations. In the last part of the paper we make some considerations about the nature of the ultraviolet fluctuations responsible for the renormalization of the lattice topological charge…
We study Yang-Mills lattice theories with $Sp(N_c)$ gauge group, with $N_c=2N$, for $N=1,\,\cdots,\,4$. We show that if we divide the renormalised couplings appearing in the Wilson flow by the quadratic Casimir $C_2(F)$ of the $Sp(N_c)$ group, then the resulting quantities display a good agreement among all values of $N_c$ considered, over a finite interval in flow time. We use this scaled version of the Wilson flow as a scale-setting procedure, compute the topological susceptibility of the $Sp(N_c)$ theories, and extrapolate the results to the continuum limit for each $N_c$.
We study large N SU(N) Yang-Mills theory in three and four dimensions using a one-parameter family of supergravity models which originate from non-extremal rotating D-branes. We show explicitly that varying this "angular momentum" parameter decouples the Kaluza-Klein modes associated with the compact D-brane coordinate, while the mass ratios for ordinary glueballs are quite stable against this variation, and are in good agreement with the latest lattice results. We also compute the topological susceptibility and the gluon condensate as a function of the "angular momentum" parameter.
We investigate, by numerical simulations on a lattice, the $θ$-dependence of 2$d$ $CP^{N-1}$ models for a range of $N$ going from 9 to 31, combining imaginary $θ$ and simulated tempering techniques to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and alleviate the critical slowing down of the topological modes. We provide continuum extrapolations for the second and fourth order coefficients in the Taylor expansion in $θ$ of the vacuum energy of the theory, parameterized in terms of the topological susceptibility $χ$ and of the so-called $b_2$ coefficient. Those are then compared with available analytic pr…
