Casimir effect in Yang-Mills theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Casimir effect in non-Abelian gauge theory through numerical simulations, revealing unique attraction behaviors and a new massive scale related to vacuum backreaction and phase transition effects.

Contribution

First-principles numerical study of the Casimir effect in non-Abelian gauge theory, uncovering a new massive scale and its relation to vacuum backreaction and phase transition.

Findings

Chromoelectric conductors attract each other with anomalous scaling.

At large separations, attraction is exponentially suppressed by a new Casimir mass.

Emergence of a new massive scale linked to vacuum backreaction and deconfinement transition.

Abstract

We study, for the first time, the Casimir effect in non-Abelian gauge theory using first-principle numerical simulations. Working in two spatial dimensions at zero temperature we find that closely spaced perfect chromoelectric conductors attract each other with a small anomalous scaling dimension. At large separation between the conductors, the attraction is exponentially suppressed by a new massive quantity, the Casimir mass, which is surprisingly different from the lowest glueball mass. The apparent emergence of the new massive scale may be a result of the backreaction of the vacuum to the presence of the plates as sufficiently close chromoelectric conductors induce, in a space between them, a smooth crossover transition to a color deconfinement phase.