A mass-dependent beta-function

TL;DR

This paper proposes a mass-dependent all-order beta-function incorporating threshold effects, connecting supersymmetric-inspired forms with pure Yang-Mills theory, and explores implications for non-Abelian gauge theories' phase structure.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mass-dependent beta-function that interpolates between supersymmetric-inspired and pure Yang-Mills behaviors, considering fermion mass thresholds.

Findings

Beta-function reduces to known forms far from thresholds.

Connects supersymmetric beta-function with pure Yang-Mills case.

Discusses phase diagram implications for non-Abelian theories.

Abstract

Threshold effects related to fermion masses are considered for an all-order beta-function based on a background field momentum subtraction scheme. Far away from all thresholds, the suggested beta-function reduces to the conjectured all-order form inspired by the Novikov-Shifman-Vainshtein-Zakharov beta-function of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories with a fixed integer number of fermion flavours. At (formally) infinite masses the corresponding pure Yang--Mills beta-function is recovered. We discuss applications to the phase diagram of non-Abelian field theories.