The Gluon Propagator in Lattice Landau Gauge with twisted boundary conditions

TL;DR

This paper studies the infrared behavior of the gluon propagator in lattice Landau gauge with twisted boundary conditions, revealing suppression of zero-momentum modes and a smaller propagator compared to periodic boundary conditions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that twisted boundary conditions suppress zero-momentum modes, affecting the infrared behavior of the gluon propagator in lattice gauge theory.

Findings

Twisted boundary conditions reduce zero-momentum fluctuation modes.

Gluon propagator is smaller with twisted boundary conditions.

Infrared behavior differs from periodic boundary condition results.

Abstract

We investigate the infrared behaviour of the gluon propagator in Landau gauge on a lattice with twisted boundary conditions. Analytic calculations using Dyson-Schwinger equations, exact renormalization group and stochastic quantization show that the gluon propagator in Landau gauge approaches zero for small momentum. On the other hand lattice calculations and calculations on a four-torus seem to give rise to a non-zero limit. One possible reason for this difference is the existence of zero-momentum fluctuation modes which potentially give a massive contribution to the gluon propagator. Our simulations show that with twisted boundary conditions these zero-momentum modes are suppressed and the gluon propagator becomes smaller than in a periodic ensemble.