The large-mass regime of confining but nearly conformal gauge theories

TL;DR

This paper uses an effective field theory to analyze the large-mass regime of an $SU(3)$ gauge theory with 8 fermions, revealing similarities to conformal behavior and emphasizing the need to study subleading effects to distinguish confinement from conformality.

Contribution

It applies a dilaton-pion effective field theory to a near-conformal gauge theory with large fermion mass, highlighting the regime where the theory mimics conformal behavior despite confinement.

Findings

Mass dependence of hadronic quantities resembles a mass-deformed conformal theory.

Large-mass regime exists where effective theory remains valid.

Distinguishing conformality from confinement requires analyzing subleading effects.

Abstract

We apply a recently developed dilaton-pion effective field theory for asymptotically free gauge theories near the conformal window to the $SU(3)$ gauge theory with $N_f=8$ fermions in the fundamental representation. Numerical data for this theory suggest the existence of a large-mass regime, where the fermion mass is not small but nevertheless the effective theory is applicable because of the parametric proximity of the conformal window. In this regime, we find that the mass dependence of hadronic quantities is similar to that of a a mass-deformed conformal theory, so that distinguishing infrared conformality from confinement requires the study of subleading effects.