See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267373501

A confining mechanism based on Gribov

horizon and BRST soft symmetry breaking in a
toy model a

Article

CITATIONS READS

0 17

6 authors, including:

Laurent Baulieu Arturo Gomez

Université Paris-Sorbonne - Paris IV Universidad Católica del Maule
158 PUBLICATIONS 3,323 CITATIONS 15 PUBLICATIONS 189 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Marcelo Guimarães Markus Q. Huber

Rio de Janeiro State University Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
74 PUBLICATIONS 603 CITATIONS 50 PUBLICATIONS 616 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Cosmology, particles and branes View project

Quantum Field theory in the presence of a fundamental length scale View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Arturo Gomez on 29 May 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

A confining mechanism based on Gribov horizon and BRST
soft symmetry breaking in a toy model
a b c c d c
L. Baulieu, M. A. L. Capri, A. J. Gomez, M. S. Guimaraes, M. Q. Huber, S. P. Sorella
a
Theory Division, CERN and LPTHE, Universites Pierre et Marie Curie
b
CPBF - Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas
c
UERJ - Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Fisica - Departamento de Fisica Teorica
d
Institut für Physik, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

Abstract Gribov-Zwanziger
A toy model which mimics the effects of the Gribov horizon and of the BRST soft symmetry breaking is constructed in order The Gribov-Zwanziger formulation is a proposal to de-
to investigate a possible mechanism for confinement. We show that the Gribov horizon and the BRST breaking combine in scribe the quantum theory of the Yang-Mills system at low
energies. The usual gauge fixed Yang-Mills action
a nice fashion, in such a way that a class of composite operators whose correlation functions exhibit physical cuts only can
Z  
be obtained as cohomology classes of the BRST operator. 1 a a
SY M = dx Fµν Fµν + i ba ∂µ Aa
µ − c̄a
M ab b
c , (1)
4
with (Landau gauge)
Introduction and Motivation M ab = −Dµ
ab
∂µ = −(δ ab  + g f abc Acµ ∂µ ), (2)
• The problem of confinement in quantum field theory may be defined by the property that the fundamental fields
appearing in the Lagrangian defining the theory do not describe the physical excitations of the theory. is modified in order to take into account the restriction of
the integration in configuration space to the Gribov region
• The prime example where this happens is QCD at low energy scales. Since even without quarks the theory is confin- by the introduction the so-called horizon function h(x)
ing, we can focus only on the pure Yang-Mills theory.
−1 cd bde b
h(x) = g 2 f ace Aa
µ (M ) f Aµ . (3)
• To properly quantize a gauge theory we must take care of the redundancy introduced by the gauge variables. In a
path integral quantization this is usually done by the introduction of Faddeev-Popov ghosts fixing the gauge in a The Gribov-Zwanziger action is given by
consistent way. Z
• Gauge symmetry turns out to be replaced by a global symmetry involving anticommuting variables known as BRST SGZ = SY M + γ 4 dx h(x). (4)
symmetry. This symmetry has a very important role in defining the physical states of the theory which are identi-
fied as the cohomology classes of the BRST generator (physical states |P hysi are the ones annihilated by the BRST The mass parameter γ is not free but determined by
generator Q and which are not of the form Q|somethingi, that is, are BRST closed but not exact).
hh(x)i = d(N 2 − 1), (5)
• Unfortunately the Faddeev-Popov procedure does not work properly outside the perturbative domain as pointed out
by Gribov [1]. There still remain gauge copies after the introduction of the ghosts. Gribov suggested a way out by where N is the number of colors and d the space-time di-
restricting the configuration space of integration to what became known as the Gribov region. Later Zwanziger [2] was mension.
able to implement analytically this restriction in the path integral formulation defining the so called Gribov-Zwanziger The added horizon function term softly breaks the BRST
action. symmetry of the model and as a result the gluon propaga-
tor
• The Gribov-Zwanziger action is renormalizable but softly breaks the BRST symmetry. The breaking has its origin
p 2 
pµ pν

in the restriction to the Gribov region implemented in the action by the so called horizon function. This means that
hAµ (p)Aν (−p)i = 4 4
δµν − 2
. (6)
there is no straightforward way of defining the physical states of the theory and in particular these states cannot be p +γ p
identified with the fundamental fields anymore. This is exactly what we expect for a confining phase.
does not have a particle interpretation since the poles are
• In this work we discuss a toy model which displays the essential elements of this picture. The toy model has many not real and it also does not satisfy the Källén-Lehmann
similarities with the Gribov-Zwanziger theory and allows for a more accessible investigation of its physical properties representation with a positive spectral density.
and to get a glimpse of the possible mechanism responsible for the establishment of the confining phase.

Physical Operators
Toy Model Search for the physical spectrum The idea is to exploit the breaking of BRST symmetry.
In order to define the toy model, we start with the free the- The theory is now drastically modified and in particular the When a theory is BRST invariant, one can add to any op-
ory ψ field propagator assumes the form erator another operator that is BRST exact without altering
the result. However, if BRST symmetry is broken, this state-
1 p2 ment is no longer true. The goal is to choose the additional
L0 = ∂µ ψ a ∂µ ψ a + ∂µ ϕ̄a ∂µ ϕa − ∂µ ω̄ a ∂µ ω a , (7) hψ a (p)ψ b (−p)i = δ ab 4 . (13)
2 p + 2ϑ 4 parts such that they cancel the unphysical part of the origi-
nal operator correlation functions. There is a whole class of
where the real field ψ is in the adjoint representation of This has the same structure as the gluon propagator of the operators that can be parameterized by coefficients multi-
SU (N ). The BRST quartet ϕa , ϕ̄a , ω a and ω̄ a , which Gribov-Zwanziger formulation. The poles of the propaga-
√ 2 plying the BRST exact terms. In general, an operator O(x)
are also in the adjoint representation, does not change the
tor are purely imaginary at ±i 2ϑ . Thus the propagator can be modified as
physical content of the theory since the last two terms are
does not describe a physical particle. X
BRST exact. O(x) → O(x) + ci s(Yi ), (15)
We expect that the physical excitations take the form of
This lagrangian is invariant under the BRST transformation i
bound states. This would mimic the behavior of Yang-Mills
(c is a constant ghost field)
theory where the physical particles are the glueballs only, where Yi are functions of the fields and ci some coefficients
a abc b c a 1 abc b c the gluons being confined. We are thus searching for com- to be chosen to cancel the unphysical part of the correlators.
sψ = f c ψ ; sc = f c c (8) posite operator with physical cuts.
2 We studied an explicit example:
The Yang-Mills case was investigated by Zwanziger [2]
s ω̄ a = ϕ̄a + f abc cb ω̄ c ; s ϕa = ω a + f abc cb ϕc , (9) 1
in terms of the correlation function of two Wilson loops, O2 (x) = ∂µ ψ a ∂µ ψ a − s(∂µ ϕ̄a ∂µ ω a ), (16)
a abc b c a abc b c
s ϕ̄ = f c ϕ̄ ; s ω = f c ω , (10) hF 2 (x)F 2 (y)i. He found the interesting result that this 2
quantity has the following structure: and we found that the last term indeed gives the non-trivial
We now turn this model into a non-trivial theory by adding
required contribution in order to cancel the unphysical part
a term that explicitly breaks the BRST symmetry hF 2 (p)F 2 (−p)i = Gun (p) + Gph (p). (14)
of the correlator hO2 (p)O2 (−p)i. We found that this corre-
L0 → L 0 + Lϑ , (11) The first part possess imaginary cuts and is thus unphysi- lator can be written in the Källén-Lehmann representation
Lϑ = ϑ2 ψ a (ϕa − ϕ̄a ), sLϑ = ϑ2 ψ a ω a 6= 0. (12) cal, whereas the second part has a cut at the real axis with Z ∞
ρ(τ )
a positive spectral density. Therefore it may describe the hO2 (p)O2 (−p)i = √ dτ 2 , (17)
The added term is the analog of the horizon function of the physical excitation of a glueball. How to get rid of the 2 2ϑ2 p +τ
Gribov-Zwanziger formulation. Here ϑ, a mass dimension unphysical part so that the complete correlation function with the spectral function ρ a positive function. For in-
parameter, plays the same role as the Gribov parameter γ. becomes physical was an unsolved problem. Within the stance, in 4 dimensions it is given by
Whereas we introduced the breaking of the BRST symme- present toy model setting, however, we are able to circum- s
try here by hand, it appears naturally in the Yang-Mills the- vent this problem and identify a physical operator whose τ2 8ϑ4
ory due to the Gribov problem. correlation function has no unphysical part. ρd=4 (τ ) = 2
1− 2 , (18)
(8π) τ
Thus we conclude that a physical spectrum can be unrav-
eled if we explore the BRST symmetry breaking in the con-
References Funding struction of physical operators. The hope is that this proce-
[1] V. N. Gribov, Nucl. Phys. B 139, 1 (1978). The authors would like to thank FAPERJ and CNPq (Brazilian dure can be applied to the more involved Yang-Mills sys-
tem in order to identify glueballs.
[2] D. Zwanziger, Nucl. Phys. B 323, 513 (1989). agencies) and FWF under contract W1203-N08 for financial support.

View publication stats