Feynman Gauge Research Articles

Gluon distribution function and factorization in Feynman gauge

A complication in proving factorization theorems in Feynman gauge is that individual graphs give a superleading power of the hard scale when all the gluons inducing the hard scattering are longitudinally polarized. With the aid of an example in gluon-mediated deep-inelastic scattering, we show that, although the superleading terms cancel after a sum over graphs, there is a residual nonzero leading term from longitudinally polarized gluons. This is due to the nonzero transverse momenta of the gluons in the target. The noncancellation, due to the non-Abelian property of the gauge group, is necessary to obtain the correct form of the gluon distribution function as a gauge-invariant matrix element.

Matching gluon scattering amplitudes and Wilson loops in off-shell regularization

We construct a regularization for light-like polygonal Wilson loops in N = 4 SYM, which matches them to the off-shell MHV gluon scattering amplitudes. Explicit calculations are performed for the 1-loop four gluon case. The off light cone extrapolation has to be based on the local supersymmetric Wilson loop. The observed matching concerns Feynman gauge. Furthermore, the leading infrared divergent term is shown to be gauge parameter independent on 1-loop level.

NLO QCD corrections to tt-barbb-bar production at the LHC: 1. quark-antiquark annihilation

The process pp -> top anti-top bottom anti-bottom + X represents a very important background reaction to searches at the LHC, in particular to top anti-top H production where the Higgs boson decays into a bottom anti-bottom pair. A successful analysis of top anti-top H at the LHC requires the knowledge of direct top anti-top bottom anti-bottom production at next-to-leading order in QCD. We take the first step in this direction upon calculating the next-to-leading-order QCD corrections to the subprocess initiated by quark anti-quark annihilation. We devote an appendix to the general issue of rational terms resulting from ultraviolet or infrared (soft or collinear) singularities within dimensional regularization. There we show that, for arbitrary processes, in the Feynman gauge, rational terms of infrared origin cancel in truncated one-loop diagrams and result only from trivial self-energy corrections.

Infrared finite ghost propagator in the Feynman gauge

We demonstrate how to obtain from the Schwinger-Dyson equations of QCD an infrared finite ghost propagator in the Feynman gauge. The key ingredient in this construction is the longitudinal form factor of the nonperturbative gluon-ghost vertex, which, contrary to what happens in the Landau gauge, contributes nontrivially to the gap equation of the ghost. The detailed study of the corresponding vertex equation reveals that in the presence of a dynamical infrared cutoff this form factor remains finite in the limit of vanishing ghost momentum. This, in turn, allows the ghost self-energy to reach a finite value in the infrared, without having to assume any additional properties for the gluon-ghost vertex, such as the presence of massless poles. The implications of this result and possible future directions are briefly outlined.

Gluon mass and freezing of the QCD coupling

Infrared finite solutions for the gluon propagator of pure QCD are obtained from the gauge-invariant non-linear Schwinger-Dyson equation formulated in the Feynman gauge of the background field method. These solutions may be fitted using a massive propagator with the special characteristic that the effective ‘mass’ employed drops asymptotically as the inverse square of the momentum transfer, in agreement with general operator-product expansion arguments. Due to the presence of the dynamical gluon mass the strong effective charge extracted from these solutions freezes at a finite value, giving rise to an infrared fixed point for QCD.

Physical subspace in a model of the quantized electromagnetic field coupled to an external field with an indefinite metric

We study a model of the quantized electromagnetic field interacting with an external static source ρ in the Feynman (Lorentz) gauge and construct the quantized radiation field Aμ (μ=0,1,2,3) as an operator-valued distribution acting on the Fock space F with an indefinite metric. By using the Gupta subsidiary condition ∂μAμ(x)(+)Ψ=0, one can select the physical subspace Vphys. According to the Gupta–Bleuler formalism, Vphys is a non-negative subspace so that elements of Vphys, called physical states, can be probabilistically interpretable. Indeed, assuming that the external source ρ is infrared regular, i.e., ρ̂∕∣k∣3∕2∊L2(R3), we can characterize the physical subspace Vphys and show that Vphys is non-negative. In addition, we find that the Hamiltonian of the model is reduced to the Hamiltonian of the transverse photons with the Coulomb interaction. We, however, prove that the physical subspace is trivial, i.e., Vphys={0}, if and only if the external source ρ is infrared singular, i.e., ρ̂∕∣k∣3∕2∉L2(R3). We also discuss a representation different from the above representation such that the physical subspace is not trivial under the infrared singular condition.

Quasi-Quark Spectrum in the Chiral Symmetric Phase from the Schwinger-Dyson Equation

We non-perturbatively study the fermion spectrum in the chiral symmetric phase from the Schwinger-Dyson equation with the Feynman gauge, in which we perform an analytic continuation of the solution on the imaginary time axis to the real time axis with a method employing an integral equation. It is shown that the fermion spectrum has two peaks, which correspond to the normal quasi-fermion and the plasmino, although these peaks in the strong coupling region are very broad, owing to multiple scatterings with gauge bosons. We find that the thermal mass of the quasi-fermion saturates at some value of the gauge coupling, beyond which the thermal (pole) mass satisfies $M \sim T$, independently of the value of the gauge coupling. We also comment on the appearance of a three-peak structure in the fermion spectrum as a non-perturbative effect.

Two-loop renormalization of scalar and pseudoscalar fermion bilinears on the lattice

We compute the two-loop renormalization functions, in the $R{I}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ scheme, of local bilinear quark operators $\overline{\ensuremath{\psi}}\ensuremath{\Gamma}\ensuremath{\psi}$, where $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ denotes the scalar and pseudoscalar Dirac matrices, in the lattice formulation of QCD. We consider both the flavor nonsinglet and singlet operators; the latter, in the scalar case, leads directly to the two-loop fermion mass renormalization, ${Z}_{m}$. As a prerequisite for the above, we also compute the quark field renormalization, ${Z}_{\ensuremath{\psi}}$, up to two loops. We use the clover action for fermions and the Wilson action for gluons. Our results are given as a polynomial in ${c}_{\mathrm{SW}}$, in terms of both the renormalized and bare coupling constants, in the renormalized Feynman gauge. We also confirm the one-loop renormalization functions, for generic gauge. Finally, we present our results in the $\overline{MS}$ scheme, for easier comparison with calculations in the continuum. The corresponding results, for fermions in an arbitrary representation, are included in the Appendix.

Photon propagator for axion electrodynamics

The axion modified electrodynamics is usually used as a model for description of possible violation of Lorentz invariance in field theory. The low-energy manifestation of Lorentz violation can hopefully be observed in experiments with electromagnetic waves. It justifies the importance of studying how a small axion addition can modify the wave propagation. Although a constant axion does not contribute to the dispersion relation at all, even a slowly varying axion field destroys the light cone structure. In this paper, we study the wave propagation in the axion modified electrodynamics in the framework of the premetric approach. In addition to the modified dispersion relation, we derive the axion generalization of the photon propagator in Feynman and Landau gauge. Our consideration is free of the usual restriction to the constant gradient axion field. It is remarkable that the axion modified propagator is Hermitian. Consequently, the dissipation effects are absent even in the phenomenological model considered here.

Renormalization group and Ward identities for infrared QED4

A regularized version of Euclidean QED4 in the Feynman gauge is considered, with a fixed ultraviolet cutoff, photon mass of the size of the cutoff, and any value, including zero, of the electron mass. We will prove that the Schwinger functions are expressed by convergent series for small values of the charge and verify the Ward identities, up to corrections which are small for momentum scales far from the ultraviolet cutoff.

Nonlinear properties of vielbein massive gravity

We propose a nonlinear extension of the Fierz–Pauli mass for the graviton through a functional of the vielbein and an external Minkowski background. The functional generalizes the notion of the measure, since it reduces to a cosmological constant if the external background is formally sent to zero. Such a term and the explicit external background emerge dynamically from a bi-gravity theory, having both a massless and a massive graviton in its spectrum, in a specific limit in which the massless mode decouples, while the massive one couples universally to matter. We investigate the massive theory using the Stuckelberg method and providing a ’t Hooft–Feynman gauge fixing, in which the tensor, vector and scalar Stuckelberg fields decouple. We show that this model has the softest possible ultraviolet behavior that can be expected from any generic (Lorentz-invariant) theory of massive gravity, namely that it becomes strong only at the scale Λ3=(mg 2MP)1/3.

Analyzing dynamical gluon mass generation

We study the necessary conditions for obtaining infrared finite solutions from the Schwinger-Dyson equation governing the dynamics of the gluon propagator. The equation in question is set up in the Feynman gauge of the background field method, thus capturing a number of desirable features. Most notably, and in contradistinction to the standard formulation, the gluon self-energy is transverse order-by-order in the dressed loop expansion, and separately for gluonic and ghost contributions. Various subtle field-theoretic issues, such as renormalization group invariance and regularization of quadratic divergences, are briefly addressed. The infrared and ultraviolet properties of the obtained solutions are examined in detail, and the allowed range for the effective gluon mass is presented.

New Covariant Gauges in String Field Theory

A single-parameter family of covariant gauge fixing conditions in bosonic string field theory is proposed. It is a natural string field counterpart of the covariant gauge in the conventional gauge theory, which includes the Landau gauge as well as the Feynman (Siegel) gauge as special cases. The action in the Landau gauge is largely simplified in such a way that numerous component fields have no derivatives in their kinetic terms and appear in at most quadratic in the vertex.

One loop corrected mode functions for scalar QED during inflation

We solve the one loop effective scalar field equations for spatial plane waves in massless, minimally coupled scalar quantum electrodynamics on a locally de Sitter background. The computation is done in two different gauges: a non-de Sitter invariant analogue of Feynman gauge, and in the de Sitter invariant, Lorentz gauge. In each case our result is that the finite part of the conformal counterterm can be chosen so that the mode functions experience no significant one loop corrections at late times. This is in perfect agreement with a recent, all orders stochastic prediction.

A PERTURBATIVE REANALYSIS OF ${\mathcal N}=4$ SUPERSYMMETRIC YANG–MILLS THEORY

The finiteness properties of the [Formula: see text] supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory are reanalyzed both in the component formulation and using [Formula: see text] superfields, in order to discuss some subtleties that emerge in the computation of gauge dependent quantities. The one-loop corrections to various Green functions of elementary fields are calculated. In the component formulation it is shown that the choice of the Wess–Zumino gauge, that is standard in supersymmetric gauge theories, introduces ultraviolet divergences in the propagators at the one-loop level. Such divergences are exactly canceled when the contributions of the fields that are put to zero in the Wess–Zumino gauge are taken into account. In the description in terms of [Formula: see text] superfields, infrared divergences are found for every choice of gauge different from the supersymmetric generalization of the Fermi–Feynman gauge. Two-, three- and four-point functions of [Formula: see text] superfields are computed and some general features of the infrared problem are discussed. We also examine the effect of the introduction of mass terms for the (anti)chiral superfields in the theory, which break supersymmetry from [Formula: see text] to [Formula: see text]. It is shown that in the mass deformed model no ultraviolet divergences appear in two-point functions. It is argued that this result can be generalized to n-point functions, supporting the proposal of a possible of use of this modified model as a supersymmetry-preserving regularization scheme for [Formula: see text] theories.

Charged scalar self-mass during inflation

We compute the one loop self-mass of a charged massless, minimally coupled scalar in a locally de Sitter background geometry. The computation is done in two different gauges: the noninvariant generalization of Feynman gauge which gives the simplest expression for the photon propagator and the de Sitter invariant gauge of Allen and Jacobson. In each case dimensional regularization is employed and fully renormalized results are obtained. By using our result in the linearized, effective field equations one can infer how the scalar responds to the dielectric medium produced by inflationary particle production. We also work out the result for a conformally coupled scalar. Although the conformally coupled case is of no great physical interest the fact that we obtain a manifestly de Sitter invariant form for its self-mass-squared establishes that our noninvariant gauge introduces no physical breaking of de Sitter invariance at one loop order.

Off-shell scattering amplitudes in the double-logarithmic approximation

When scattering amplitudes are calculated in the double-logarithmic approximation, it is possible to relate the double-logarithmic on-shell and off-shell amplitudes. Explicit relations are obtained for scattering amplitudes in QED, QCD, and the electroweak standard model. The off-shell amplitudes are considered in the hard and the Regge kinematic limits. We compare our results in both the Feynman and Coulomb gauges.

Semiclassical approach to black hole absorption of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a rotating charge

We consider an electric charge, minimally coupled to the Maxwell field, rotating around a Schwarzschild black hole. We investigate how much of the radiation emitted from the swirling charge is absorbed by the black hole and show that most of the photons escape to infinity. For this purpose we use the Gupta-Bleuler quantization of the electromagnetic field in the modified Feynman gauge developed in the context of quantum field theory in Schwarzschild spacetime. We obtain that the two photon polarizations contribute quite differently to the emitted power. In addition, we discuss the accurateness of the results obtained in a full general relativistic approach in comparison with the ones obtained when the electric charge is assumed to be orbiting a massive object due to a Newtonian force.

Next-to-leading order calculation of a fragmentation function in a light-cone gauge

The short-distance coefficients for the color-octet $^{3}S_{1}$ term in the fragmentation function for a gluon to split into polarized heavy quarkonium states are recalculated to order ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{s}^{2}$. The light-cone gauge remarkably simplifies the calculation by eliminating many Feynman diagrams at the expense of introducing spurious poles in loop integrals. We do not use any conventional prescriptions for spurious pole. Instead, we only use gauge invariance with the aid of Collins-Soper definition of the fragmentation function. Our result agrees with a previous calculation of Braaten and Lee in the Feynman gauge, but disagrees with another previous calculation.

Gauge Dependence of the Effective Gravitational Field

We analyze the gauge ambiguity problem for the effective gravitational field from the standpoint of the measurement process. The motion of a test point particle playing the role of a measuring device is investigated in the field of a point gravitating mass in the one-loop approximation. We show that the gravitational field value determined from the effective equations of motion of the device explicitly depends on the Feynman gauge parameter. This dependence is essential in the sense that a gauge variation cannot be interpreted as a deformation of the reference frame, which leads to a gauge ambiguity in the values of observed quantities. In particular, this result disproves the hypothesis that gauge dependence is canceled in the effective equations of motion of a classical point particle.