Two loop effective potential for < A^2_\mu > in the Landau gauge in quantum chromodynamics

TL;DR

This paper calculates the two-loop effective potential for a specific gluon operator in QCD, revealing how the effective gluon mass estimate varies with the number of quark flavors in the Landau gauge.

Contribution

It provides the first two-loop calculation of the effective potential for the dimension two gluon operator in massless QCD with arbitrary color groups.

Findings

Effective gluon mass estimate decreases with increasing N_f.

Constructed the effective potential for the operator in SU(3) and other groups.

Performed calculations at two-loop order in the Landau gauge.

Abstract

We construct the effective potential for the dimension two composite operator 1/2 A^{a 2}_\mu in QCD with massless quarks in the Landau gauge for an arbitrary colour group at two loops. For SU(3) we show that an estimate for the effective gluon mass decreases as N_f increases.