Adventures in Coulomb Gauge

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phase structure of SU(2) gauge theories in Coulomb gauge, analyzing the relation between remnant gauge symmetry realization and confinement through numerical computation of the Coulomb potential.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the symmetric and broken phases of remnant gauge symmetry and their connection to confinement in SU(2) gauge theories.

Findings

Symmetric phase correlates with a linearly rising Coulomb potential.

Broken phase shows different potential behavior.

Numerical results support the link between remnant symmetry and confinement.

Abstract

We study the phase structure of SU(2) gauge theories at zero and high temperature, with and without scalar matter fields, in terms of the symmetric/broken realization of the remnant gauge symmetry which exists after fixing to Coulomb gauge. The symmetric realization is associated with a linearly rising color Coulomb potential (which we compute numerically), and is a necessary but not sufficient condition for confinement.