Electric-magnetic asymmetry of the A^2 condensate and the phases of Yang-Mills theory

TL;DR

This study investigates the temperature-dependent electric-magnetic asymmetry of the A^2 condensate in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, revealing its behavior across phases and suggesting links to different states of confining gluonic objects.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the phase structure of Yang-Mills theory through the analysis of the A^2 condensate asymmetry and its relation to gluonic states.

Findings

Asymmetry peaks at the phase transition.

Symmetric point occurs at twice the critical temperature.

Low-temperature excitation mass is about 200 MeV, below glueball mass.

Abstract

We study the finite-temperature behavior of the A^2 condensate in the Landau gauge of SU(2) Yang--Mills theory on the lattice in a wide range of temperatures. The asymmetry between the electric (temporal) and magnetic (spatial) components of this unconventional dimension-2 condensate is a convenient ultraviolet-finite quantity which possesses, as we demonstrate, unexpected properties. The low-temperature behavior of the condensate asymmetry suggests that the mass of the lowest thermal excitation in the condensate is unexpectedly low, about 200 MeV, which is much smaller than the glueball mass. The asymmetry is peaking at the phase transition, becoming a monotonically decreasing function in the deconfinement phase. A symmetric point is reached in the deconfinement phase at a temperature approximately equal twice the critical temperature. The behavior of the electric-magnetic asymmetry of the condensate separates the phase diagram of Yang-Mills theory into three regions. We suggest that these regions are associated with the condensed, liquid and gaseous states of the confining gluonic objects, the Abelian monopoles.