Magnetic Screening in Hot Non-Abelian Gauge Theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the infrared behavior of magnetic gluon propagators in SU(2) gauge theory at finite temperature, revealing gauge-dependent low-momentum behavior but consistent exponential screening of magnetic fields across gauges.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of magnetic gluon propagators in different gauges and determines the magnetic screening mass in the maximally Abelian gauge.

Findings

Magnetic propagator is infrared suppressed in Landau gauge.

Magnetic propagator remains finite and large in MAG.

Magnetic fields are exponentially screened in all gauges.

Abstract

We analyze the large distance and low-momentum behavior of the magnetic gluon propagator of the SU(2) gauge theory at finite temperature. Lattice calculations within the 4-dimensional as well as the effective, dimensionally reduced 3-dimensional gauge theories in generalized Landau gauges and MAG show that the magnetic propagator is strongly infrared suppressed in Landau gauges but stays large and finite in MAG. Despite these differences in the low-momentum behavior of the propagator calculated in different gauges the magnetic fields are exponentially screened in all gauges considered. From the propagator calculated in maximally Abelian gauge we find for the screening mass, m_M = (1.48 +/- 0.17) T at T=2 T_c.