Asymptotic Freedom and Confinement from Type 0 String Theory

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that type 0 string theory solutions can exhibit confinement and asymptotic freedom, with specific IR and UV behaviors, and matches some glueball spectra with lattice results.

Contribution

It provides new solutions in type 0 string theory that exhibit confinement and asymptotic freedom, with suppressed higher order corrections and fixed tachyon flows.

Findings

Solutions show confining IR behavior and log UV scaling.

Long-range linear quark potential and discrete glueball spectrum.

Estimated glueball mass ratios align with lattice computations.

Abstract

We argue that there are generic solutions to the type 0 gravity equations of motion that are confining in the infrared and have log scaling in the ultraviolet. The background curvature generically diverges in the IR. Nevertheless, there exist solutions where higher order string corrections appear to be exponentially suppressed in the IR with respect to the leading type 0 gravity terms. For these solutions the tachyon flows to a fixed value. We show that the generic solutions lead to a long range linear quark potential, magnetic screening and a discrete glueball spectrum. We also estimate some WKB glueball mass ratios and compare them to ratios found using finite temperature models and lattice computations.