Confinement and Pseudoscalar Glueball Spectrum in the $2+1$D QCD-Like Theory from the Non-Susy D$2$ Brane

TL;DR

This paper uses holographic methods to analyze confinement and the pseudoscalar glueball spectrum in 2+1 dimensional QCD-like theories derived from non-susy D2 branes, revealing how flux-tube tension and glueball masses depend on the effective coupling.

Contribution

It provides a holographic study of confinement and glueball spectra in 2+1D QCD-like theories from non-susy D2 branes, including numerical mass spectrum calculations.

Findings

Flux-tube tension increases with effective coupling.

Glueball mass ratios approximately follow a linear relation with quantum number.

The potential between quarks matches previous results in the appropriate limit.

Abstract

Here we study two important properties of $2+1$ dimensional QCD -- confinement and pseudoscalar glueball spectrum -- with holographic approach. We consider the low energy decoupled geometry of the isotropic non-susy D$2$ brane. We find the corresponding gauge theory is similar to the $2+1$-dim Yang-Mills theory with the running coupling $\lambda^2$. At the extremal limit (i.e. BPS limit), this gauge theory reduces to the super-YM theory. From the Nambu-Goto action of a test string, the potential of a \qq pair located on the boundary is calculated. At large \qq separation it gives the tension $\sigma$ of the QCD flux-tube. The parametric dependencies of $\sigma$ is shown pictorially. It is found that $\sigma$ is a monotonically increasing function of the effective coupling $\lambda^2$. In comparison, $\sqrt{\sigma}/g_\text{YM}^2N_c$ is found to match accurately with the previous results. In the next part, we consider fluctuation of the axion field in the aforementioned gravity background. From the linearized field equation of the fluctuation we calculate the mass spectrum of $0^{-+}$ numerically using the WKB approximation. The pseudoscalar mass is found to be related to the string tension approximately as $M_{0^{-+}}/\sqrt{\sigma}\approx 3(n+2)$ for first three energy states, $n=0,\,1,\,2$.