Schwinger mechanism for gluons from lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper provides strong evidence from lattice QCD simulations that a Schwinger mechanism underlies gluon mass generation in quantum chromodynamics, confirming long-standing theoretical conjectures.

Contribution

It demonstrates, through high-confidence lattice results, the emergence of a massless, scalar gluon+gluon correlation essential for the Schwinger mechanism in QCD.

Findings

Confirmation of a massless, scalar gluon+gluon correlation

Evidence supporting the Schwinger mechanism for gluon mass

High-confidence lattice QCD results

Abstract

Continuum and lattice analyses have revealed the existence of a mass-scale in the gluon two-point Schwinger function. It has long been conjectured that this expresses the action of a Schwinger mechanism for gauge boson mass generation in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). For such to be true, it is necessary and sufficient that a dynamically-generated, massless, colour-carrying, scalar gluon+gluon correlation emerge as a feature of the dressed three-gluon vertex. Working with results on elementary Schwinger functions obtained via the numerical simulation of lattice-regularised QCD, we establish with an extremely high level of confidence that just such a feature appears; hence, confirm the conjectured origin of the gluon mass scale.