Asymptotic freedom and IR freezing in QCD: the role of gluon paramagnetism

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that gluon paramagnetism is fundamental to understanding QCD's key features, including asymptotic freedom and infrared freezing, through background field methods and perturbation theory.

Contribution

It shows that gluon paramagnetism underpins IR freezing and asymptotic freedom in QCD, with calculations aligning well with phenomenology and lattice data.

Findings

Gluon paramagnetism is crucial for IR freezing and AF in QCD.

First terms of background perturbation theory reproduce AF and IR freezing.

Effective mass for IR freezing matches phenomenological and lattice results.

Abstract

Paramagnetism of gluons is shown to play the basic role in establishing main properties of QCD: IR freezing and asymptotic freedom (AF). Starting with Polyakov background field approach the first terms of background perturbation theory are calculated and shown to ensure not only the classical result of AF but also IR freezing. For the latter only the confining property of the background is needed, and the effective mass entering the IR freezing logarithms is calculated in good agreement with phenomenology and lattice data.