Gluon-propagator functional form in the Landau gauge in SU(3) lattice QCD: Yukawa-type gluon propagator and anomalous gluon spectral function

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the Landau-gauge gluon propagator in SU(3) lattice QCD can be accurately described by a Yukawa-type function, revealing an effective gluon mass around 600 MeV and a nearly negative-definite spectral function with a peak at this mass.

Contribution

The study introduces a Yukawa-type functional form for the gluon propagator in Landau gauge, providing new analytical insights into the gluon spectral function and effective mass in lattice QCD.

Findings

Gluon propagator fits Yukawa-type function $e^{-mr}/r$ with $m \,\approx 600$ MeV.

Momentum-space propagator approximated by $(p^2+m^2)^{-3/2}$ form.

Gluon spectral function is nearly negative-definite with a peak at $ ext{mass} \, m$.

Abstract

We study the gluon propagator $D_{\mu\nu}^{ab}(x)$ in the Landau gauge in SU(3) lattice QCD at $\beta$ = 5.7, 5.8, and 6.0 at the quenched level. The effective gluon mass is estimated as $400 \sim 600$MeV for $r \equiv (x_\alpha x_\alpha)^{1/2} = 0.5 \sim 1.0$ fm. Through the functional-form analysis of $D_{\mu\nu}^{ab}(x)$ obtained in lattice QCD, we find that the Landau-gauge gluon propagator $D_{\mu\mu}^{aa}(r)$ is well described by the Yukawa-type function $e^{-mr}/r$ with $m \simeq 600$MeV for $r = 0.1 \sim 1.0$ fm in the four-dimensional Euclidean space-time. In the momentum space, the gluon propagator $\tilde D_{\mu\mu}^{aa}(p^2)$ with $(p^2)^{1/2}= 0.5 \sim 3$ GeV is found to be well approximated with a new-type propagator of $(p^2+m^2)^{-3/2}$, which corresponds to the four-dimensional Yukawa-type propagator. Associated with the Yukawa-type gluon propagator, we derive analytical expressions for the zero-spatial-momentum propagator $D_0(t)$, the effective mass $M_{\rm eff}(t)$, and the spectral function $\rho(\omega)$ of the gluon field. The mass parameter $m$ turns out to be the effective gluon mass in the infrared region of $\sim$ 1fm. As a remarkable fact, the obtained gluon spectral function $\rho(\omega)$ is almost negative-definite for $\omega >m$, except for a positive $\delta$-functional peak at $\omega=m$.