Nele Vandersickel

Refinement of the Gribov-Zwanziger approach in the Landau gauge: Infrared propagators in harmony with the lattice results

Recent lattice data have reported an infrared suppressed, positivity violating gluon propagator which is nonvanishing at zero momentum and a ghost propagator which is no longer enhanced. This paper discusses how to obtain analytical results which are in qualitative agreement with these lattice data within the Gribov-Zwanziger framework. This framework allows one to take into account effects related to the existence of gauge copies, by restricting the domain of integration in the path integral to the Gribov region. We elaborate to great extent on a previous short paper by presenting additional results, also confirmed by the numerical simulations. A detailed discussion on the soft breaking of the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin symmetry arising in the Gribov-Zwanziger approach is provided.

New features of the gluon and ghost propagator in the infrared region from the Gribov-Zwanziger approach

So far, the infrared behavior of the gluon and ghost propagat or based on the Gribov-Zwanziger approach predicted a positivity violating gluon propagator vanishing a t zero momentum, and an infrared enhanced ghost propagator. However, recent data based on huge lattices hav revealed a positivity violating gluon propagator which turns out to attain a finite nonvanishingvalue very close to zero momentum. At the same time the ghost propagator does not seem to be infrared enhanced anymore. We point out that these new features can be accounted for by yet unexploited dynamical effects within the Gribov-Zwanziger approach, leading to an infrared behavior in qualitatively good agreement with the new data.

The Gribov problem and QCD dynamics

Abstract In 1967, Faddeev and Popov were able to quantize the Yang–Mills theory by introducing new particles called ghost through the introduction of a gauge. Ever since, this quantization has become a standard textbook item. Some years later, Gribov discovered that the gauge fixing was not complete, gauge copies called Gribov copies were still present and could affect the infrared region of quantities like the gauge dependent gluon and ghost propagator. This feature was often in the literature related to confinement. Some years later, the semi-classical approach of Gribov was generalized to all orders and the GZ action was born. Ever since, many related articles were published. This review tends to give a pedagogic review of the ideas of Gribov and the subsequent construction of the GZ action, including many other topics related to the Gribov region. It is shown how the GZ action can be viewed as a non-perturbative tool which has relations with other approaches toward confinement. Many different features related to the GZ action shall be discussed in detail, such as BRST breaking, the KO criterion, the propagators, etc. We shall also compare with the lattice data and other non-perturbative approaches, including stochastic quantization.

Indirect lattice evidence for the refined Gribov-Zwanziger formalism and the gluon condensate in the Landau gauge

We consider the gluon propagator D(p{sup 2}) at various lattice sizes and spacings in the case of pure SU(3) Yang-Mills gauge theories using the Landau gauge fixing. We discuss a class of fits in the infrared region in order to (in)validate the tree level analytical prediction in terms of the (refined) Gribov-Zwanziger framework. It turns out that an important role is played by the presence of the widely studied dimension two gluon condensate . Including this effect allows to obtain an acceptable fit around 1 to 1.5 GeV, while corroborating the refined Gribov-Zwanziger prediction for the gluon propagator. We also discuss the infinite volume extrapolation, leading to the estimate D(0)=8.3{+-}0.5 GeV{sup -2}. As a by-product, we can also provide the prediction {approx_equal}3 GeV{sup 2} obtained at the renormalization scale {mu}=10 GeV.

Modeling the Gluon Propagator in Landau Gauge: Lattice Estimates of Pole Masses and Dimension-Two Condensates

We present an analytic description of numerical results for the Landau-gauge SU(2) gluon propagator D(p(2)), obtained from lattice simulations (in the scaling region) for the largest lattice sizes to date, in d = 2, 3 and 4 space-time dimensions. Fits to the gluon data in 3d and in 4d show very good agreement with the tree-level prediction of the refined Gribov-Zwanziger (RGZ) framework, supporting a massive behavior for D(p(2)) in the infrared limit. In particular, we investigate the propagators pole structure and provide estimates of the dynamical mass scales that can be associated with dimension-two condensates in the theory. In the 2d case, fitting the data requires a noninteger power of the momentum p in the numerator of the expression for D(p(2)). In this case, an infinite-volume-limit extrapolation gives D(0) = 0. Our analysis suggests that this result is related to a particular symmetry in the complex-pole structure of the propagator and not to purely imaginary poles, as would be expected in the original Gribov-Zwanziger scenario.

Dynamical origin of the refinement of the Gribov-Zwanziger theory

In recent years, the Gribov-Zwanziger action was refined by taking into account certain dimension 2 condensates. In this fashion, one succeeded in bringing the gluon and the ghost propagator obtained from the Gribov-Zwanziger model in qualitative and quantitative agreement with the lattice data. In this paper, we shall elaborate further on this aspect. First, we shall show that more dimension 2 condensates can be taken into account than considered so far and, in addition, we shall give firm evidence that these condensates are in fact present by discussing the effective potential. It follows thus that the Gribov-Zwanziger action dynamically transforms itself into the refined version, thereby showing that the continuum nonperturbative Landau gauge fixing, as implemented by the Gribov-Zwanziger approach, is consistent with lattice simulations.

Gribov no-pole condition, Zwanziger horizon function, Kugo-Ojima confinement criterion, boundary conditions, BRST breaking and all that

We aim to offer a kind of unifying view on two popular topics in the studies of nonperturbative aspects of Yang-Mills theories in the Landau gauge: the so-called Gribov-Zwanziger approach and the Kugo-Ojima confinement criterion. Borrowing results from statistical thermodynamics, we show that imposing the Kugo-Ojima confinement criterion as a boundary condition leads to a modified yet renormalizable partition function. We verify that the resulting partition function is equivalent with the one obtained by Gribov and Zwanziger, which restricts the domain of integration in the path integral within the first Gribov horizon. The construction of an action implementing a boundary condition allows one to discuss the symmetries of the system in the presence of the boundary. In particular, the conventional Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin symmetry is softly broken.

Gribov horizon and i-particles: About a toy model and the construction of physical operators

Restricting the functional integral to the Gribov region Omega leads to a deep modification of the behavior of Euclidean Yang-Mills theories in the infrared region. For example, a gluon propagator of the Gribov type, k(2) / k(4) + (gamma) over cap (4), can be viewed as a propagating pair of unphysical modes, called here i-particles, with complex masses +/- i (gamma) over cap (2). From this viewpoint, gluons are unphysical and one can see them as being confined. We introduce a simple toy model describing how a suitable set of composite operators can be constructed out of i-particles whose correlation functions exhibit only real branch cuts, with associated positive spectral density. These composite operators can thus be called physical and are the toy analogy of glueballs in the Gribov-Zwanziger theory.

Landau gauge gluon and ghost propagators in the refined Gribov-Zwanziger framework in 3 dimensions

In previous works, we have constructed a refined version of the Gribov-Zwanziger action in 4 dimensions, by taking into account a novel dynamical effect. In this paper, we explore the 3-dimensional case. Analogously to 4 dimensions, we obtain a ghost propagator behaving like 1/p{sup 2} in the infrared, while the gluon propagator reaches a finite nonvanishing value at zero momentum. Simultaneously, a clear violation of positivity by the gluon propagator is also found. This behavior of the propagators turns out to be in agreement with the recent numerical simulations.

A study of early afterdepolarizations in a model for human ventricular tissue

Sudden cardiac death is often caused by cardiac arrhythmias. Recently, special attention has been given to a certain arrhythmogenic condition, the long-QT syndrome, which occurs as a result of genetic mutations or drug toxicity. The underlying mechanisms of arrhythmias, caused by the long-QT syndrome, are not fully understood. However, arrhythmias are often connected to special excitations of cardiac cells, called early afterdepolarizations (EADs), which are depolarizations during the repolarizing phase of the action potential. So far, EADs have been studied mainly in isolated cardiac cells. However, the question on how EADs at the single-cell level can result in fibrillation at the tissue level, especially in human cell models, has not been widely studied yet. In this paper, we study wave patterns that result from single-cell EAD dynamics in a mathematical model for human ventricular cardiac tissue. We induce EADs by modeling experimental conditions which have been shown to evoke EADs at a single-cell level: by an increase of L-type Ca currents and a decrease of the delayed rectifier potassium currents. We show that, at the tissue level and depending on these parameters, three types of abnormal wave patterns emerge. We classify them into two types of spiral fibrillation and one type of oscillatory dynamics. Moreover, we find that the emergent wave patterns can be driven by calcium or sodium currents and we find phase waves in the oscillatory excitation regime. From our simulations we predict that arrhythmias caused by EADs can occur during normal wave propagation and do not require tissue heterogeneities. Experimental verification of our results is possible for experiments at the cell-culture level, where EADs can be induced by an increase of the L-type calcium conductance and by the application of I blockers, and the properties of the emergent patterns can be studied by optical mapping of the voltage and calcium.