QCD AND ASYMPTOTIC FREEDOM: PERSPECTIVES AND PROSPECTS

Abstract

QCD is now a mature theory, and it is possible to begin to view its place in the conceptual universe of physics with an appropriate perspective. There is a certain irony in the achievements of QCD. For the problems which initially drove its development — specifically, the desire to understand in detail the force that holds atomic nuclei together, and later the desire to calculate the spectrum of hadrons and their interactions — only limited insight has been achieved. However, I shall argue that QCD is actually more special and important a theory than one had any right to anticipate. In many ways, the importance of the solution transcends that of the original motivating problems. After elaborating on these quasiphilosophical remarks, I discuss two current frontiers of physics that illustrate the continuing vitality of the ideas. The recent wealth of beautiful precision experiments measuring the parameters of the standard model have made it possible to consider the unification of couplings in unprecedented quantitative detail. One central result emerging from these developments is a tantalizing hint of virtual supersymmetry. The possibility of phase transitions in matter at temperatures of order ~102 MeV, governed by QCD dynamics, is of interest from several points of view. Besides having a certain intrinsic grandeur, the question “Does the nature of matter change qualitatively, as it is radically heated?” is important for cosmology, relevant to planned high-energy heavy-ion collision experiments, and provides a promising arena for numerical simulations of QCD. Recent numerical work seems to be consistent with expectations suggested by renormalization group analysis of the potential universality classes of the QCD chiral phase transition; specifically, that the transition is second-order for two species of massless quarks but first order otherwise. There is an interesting possibility of long-range correlations in heavy ion collisions due to the creation of large regions of the misaligned chiral condensate. Finally, at the end, there is a brief discussion on the relation between scaling violations and running of the coupling. Some statements made later in the conference seemed to indicate that the relationship between these concepts is commonly misunderstood, so I’m smuggling this bit in even though it wasn’t part of the original talk.