A study of the Higgs and confining phases in Euclidean SU(2) Yang-Mills theories in 3d by taking into account the Gribov horizon

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phase transition between Higgs and confining phases in 3D SU(2) Yang-Mills theories considering the Gribov horizon, revealing different phase structures for various Higgs representations.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-classical approach incorporating the Gribov horizon to analyze phase transitions in 3D SU(2) Yang-Mills theories with different Higgs representations.

Findings

Different phase structures for adjoint and fundamental Higgs fields.

Identification of a transition between Higgs and confining phases.

Use of the Gribov horizon to restrict the functional integral domain.

Abstract

We study SU(2) three-dimensional Yang-Mills theories in presence of Higgs fields in the light of the Gribov phenomenon. By restricting the domain of integration in the functional integral to the first Gribov horizon, we are able to discuss a kind of transition between the Higgs and the confining phase in a semi-classical approximation. Both adjoint and fundamental representation for the Higgs field are considered, leading to a different phase structure.