Antonio Rago

Conformal versus confining scenario in SU(2) with adjoint fermions

The masses of the lowest-lying states in the meson and in the gluonic sector of an SU(2) gauge theory with two Dirac flavors in the adjoint representation are measured on the lattice at a fixed value of the lattice coupling {beta}=4/g{sub 0}{sup 2}=2.25 for values of the bare fermion mass m{sub 0} that span a range between the quenched regime and the massless limit, and for various lattice volumes. Even for light constituent fermions the lightest glueballs are found to be lighter than the lightest mesons. Moreover, the string tension between two static fundamental sources strongly depends on the mass of the dynamical fermions and becomes of the order of the inverse squared lattice linear size before the chiral limit is reached. The implications of these findings for the phase of the theory in the massless limit are discussed and a strategy for discriminating between the (near-)conformal and the confining scenario is outlined.

Infrared dynamics of minimal walking technicolor

We study the gauge sector of minimal walking technicolor, which is an SU(2) gauge theory with n{sub f}=2 flavors of Wilson fermions in the adjoint representation. Numerical simulations are performed on lattices N{sub t}xN{sub s}{sup 3}, with N{sub s} ranging from 8 to 16 and N{sub t}=2N{sub s}, at fixed {beta}=2.25, and varying the fermion bare mass m{sub 0}, so that our numerical results cover the full range of fermion masses from the quenched region to the chiral limit. We present results for the string tension and the glueball spectrum. A comparison of mesonic and gluonic observables leads to the conclusion that the infrared dynamics is given by an SU(2) pure Yang-Mills theory with a typical energy scale for the spectrum sliding to zero with the fermion mass. The typical mesonic mass scale is proportional to and much larger than this gluonic scale. Our findings are compatible with a scenario in which the massless theory is conformal in the infrared. An analysis of the scaling of the string tension with the fermion mass toward the massless limit allows us to extract the chiral condensate anomalous dimension {gamma}{sub *}, which is found to be {gamma}{sub *}=0.22{+-}0.06.

Critical exponents of the 3d Ising and related models from conformal bootstrap

A bstractThe constraints of conformal bootstrap are applied to investigate a set of conformal field theories in various dimensions. The prescriptions can be applied to both unitary and non unitary theories allowing for the study of the spectrum of low-lying primary operators of the theory. We evaluate the lowest scaling dimensions of the local operators associated with the Yang-Lee edge singularity for 2 ≤ D ≤ 6. Likewise we obtain the scaling dimensions of six scalars and four spinning operators for the 3d critical Ising model. Our findings are in agreement with existing results to a per mill precision and estimate several new exponents.

Boundary and Interface CFTs from the Conformal Bootstrap

A bstractWe explore some consequences of the crossing symmetry for defect conformal field theories, focusing on codimension one defects like flat boundaries or interfaces. We study surface transitions of the 3d Ising and other O(N ) models through numerical solutions to the crossing equations with the method of determinants. In the extraordinary transition, where the low-lying spectrum of the surface operators is known, we use the bootstrap equations to obtain information on the bulk spectrum of the theory. In the ordinary transition the knowledge of the low-lying bulk spectrum allows to calculate the scale dimension of the relevant surface operator, which compares well with known results of two-loop calculations in 3d. Estimates of various OPE coefficients are also obtained. We also analyze in 4-ϵ dimensions the renormalization group interface between the O(N ) model and the free theory and check numerically the results in 3d.

Mesonic spectroscopy of minimal walking technicolor

We investigate the structure and the novel emerging features of the mesonic nonsinglet spectrum of the minimal walking technicolor theory. Precision measurements in the nonsinglet pseudoscalar and vector channels are compared to the expectations for an IR-conformal field theory and a QCD-like theory. Our results favor a scenario in which minimal walking technicolor is (almost) conformal in the infrared, while spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking seems less plausible.

Wilson loops in string duals of walking and flavored systems

We consider the vacuum expectation value of Wilson loop operators by studying the behavior of string probes in solutions of type-IIB string theory generated by N{sub c} D5-branes wrapped on an S{sup 2} internal manifold. In particular, we focus on solutions to the background equations that are dual to field theories with a walking gauge coupling as well as for flavored systems. We present in detail our walking solution and emphasize various general aspects of the procedure to study Wilson loops using string duals. We discuss the special features that the strings show when probing the region associated with the walking of the field-theory coupling.

Static quark potential and effective string corrections in the (2+1)-d SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

We report on a very accurate measurement of the static quark potential in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in (2+1) dimensions in order to study the corrections to the linear behaviour. We perform numerical simulations at zero and finite temperature comparing our results with the corrections given by the effective string picture in these two regimes. We also check for universal features discussing our results together with those recently published for the (2+1)-d (2) and SU(3) pure gauge theories.

Glueball masses in the large N limit

The lowest-lying glueball masses are computed in SU(N) gauge theory on a spacetime lattice for constant value of the lattice spacing a and for N ranging from 3 to 8. The lattice spacing is fixed using the deconfinement temperature at temporal extension of the lattice NT = 6. The calculation is conducted employing in each channel a variational ansatz performed on a large basis of operators that includes also torelon and (for the lightest states) scattering trial functions. This basis is constructed using an automatic algorithm that allows us to build operators of any size and shape in any irreducible representation of the cubic group. A good signal is extracted for the ground state and the first excitation in several symmetry channels. It is shown that all the observed states are well described by their large N values, with modest

Space-time symmetries and the Yang-Mills gradient flow

\mathcal{O}\left( {{{1} \left/ {{{N^2}}} \right.}} \right)

Improved lattice spectroscopy of minimal walking technicolor

corrections. In addition spurious states are identified that couple to torelon and scattering operators. As a byproduct of our calculation, the critical couplings for the deconfinement phase transition for N = 5 and N = 7 and temporal extension of the lattice NT = 6 are determined.