# Gluon propagator in two-color dense QCD: Massive Yang-Mills approach at one-loop

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the gluon propagator in dense two-color QCD using a massive Yang-Mills model at one-loop, revealing how a gluon mass influences medium effects and aligns with lattice results.

## Contribution

It introduces a one-loop calculation of the gluon propagator in dense two-color QCD incorporating a massive Yang-Mills approach, bridging non-perturbative effects with lattice data.

## Key findings

- Gluon mass reduces medium effects and uncertainties in the strong coupling constant.
- Diquark condensate's gap explains lattice insensitivity to quark density.
- Limitations of one-loop approximation and missing physics in medium corrections.

## Abstract

We study the Landau gauge gluon propagators in dense two-color QCD at quark chemical potential, $\mu_q$, in the range from 0.5 to 1.0 GeV not reachable by the perturbative method at weak coupling. In order to take into account the non-perturbative effects, at tree level we use a massive Yang-Mills model for the Yang-Mills theory (or the Curci-Ferrari model) which has successfully described the lattice results of the gluon and ghost propagators in the Landau gauge. We couple quarks to this theory and compute the one-loop polarization effects in medium. The presence of the gluon mass significantly tempers the medium effects and uncertainties associated with the strong coupling constant $\alpha_s$. The diquark condensate in two-color QCD is color-singlet, for which neither electric nor magnetic screening masses should appear at the scale less than the diquark gap. The presence of the gap helps to explain the lattice results which are not very sensitive to the quark density. Meanwhile we also found the limitation of the one-loop estimate as well as the lack of some physics in perturbative medium corrections.