Dyson-Schwinger approach to Hamiltonian quantum chromodynamics

Abstract

The general method for treating non-Gaussian wave functionals in the Hamiltonian formulation of a quantum field theory, which was previously proposed and developed for Yang-Mills theory in Coulomb gauge, is generalized to full QCD. For this purpose the quark part of the QCD vacuum wave functional is expressed in the basis of coherent fermion states, which are defined in terms of Grassmann variables. Our variational Ansatz for the QCD vacuum wave functional is assumed to be given by exponentials of polynomials in the occurring fields and, furthermore, contains an explicit coupling of the quarks to the gluons. Exploiting Dyson-Schwinger equation techniques, we express the various $n$-point functions, which are required for the expectation values of observables like the Hamiltonian, in terms of the variational kernels of our trial Ansatz. Finally, the equations of motion for these variational kernels are derived by minimizing the energy density.