Quark Propagator In Landau Gauge Research Articles

Overlap quark propagator near the physical pion mass

The Landau-gauge quark propagator is calculated using overlap valence fermions on 2+1-flavour dynamical clover fermion gauge fields from the PACS-CS collaboration with pion mass mπ∼156 MeV and spatial volume ∼(3 fm)3. The observed features of the mass and renormalisation functions are discussed, including a comparison with recent results using O(a)-improved Wilson fermions on 2-flavour dynamical gauge fields.

Analytic structure of the Landau gauge quark propagator from Padé analysis

The analytic structure of the two flavorful QCD lattice Landau gauge quark propagator is investigated with Pad\'e approximants applied to its vector and scalar form factors. No poles at complex momentum are observed for the propagator. Moreover, there is clear evidence of a pole at real on-axis negative Euclidean momentum, i.e., for a Minkowski type of momentum. This pole occurs at Euclidean momenta $p\ensuremath{\sim}\ensuremath{-}300\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$ and it reproduces typical quark mass values used in phenomenological effective quark models. The Pad\'e approximant analysis also gives hints on the presence of a branch cut. Our results also show a clear correlation between the position of this pole, understood as an effective quark mass, and the pion mass that is compatible with partial conservation of the axial current. Slightly differences between the poles for the two quark form factors are observed which can be viewed either as a limitation of the method or as a suggestion that the quark propagator has no spectral representation.

Quark propagator with two flavors of O(a) -improved Wilson fermions

We compute the Landau gauge quark propagator from lattice QCD with two flavors of dynamical O(a)-improved Wilson fermions. The calculation is carried out with lattice spacings ranging from 0.06 fm to 0.08 fm, with quark masses corresponding to pion masses of 420, 290 and 150 MeV, and for volumes of up to (4.5fm)^4. Our ensembles allow us to evaluate lattice spacing, volume and quark mass effects. We find that the quark wave function which is suppressed in the infrared, is further suppressed as the quark mass is reduced, but the suppression is weakened as the volume is increased. The quark mass function M(p^2) shows only a weak volume dependence. Hypercubic artefacts beyond O(a) are reduced by applying both cylinder cuts and H4 extrapolations. The H4 extrapolation shifts the quark wave function systematically upwards but does not perform well for the mass function.

Lattice Landau Gauge Quark Propagator and the Quark--Gluon Vertex

We report preliminary results of our ongoing lattice computation of the Landau gauge quark propagator and the soft gluon limit of the quark-gluon vertex with 2 flavors of dynamical O(a) improved Wilson fermions.

Quark mass and chiral condensate from the Wilson twisted mass lattice quark propagator

In this work, we report about the determination of nonperturbative OPE parameters from fits of continuum perturbation theory to the Landau gauge quark propagator. The propagators are computed numerically using lattice QCD with Nf=2 dynamical Wilson twisted mass fermions. We use four different values of the lattice spacing ranging from about 0.1 fm to about 0.05 fm as well as several quark masses per lattice spacing. This allows us to obtain continuum results for the chiral condensate and the average up/down quark mass. The main results are the average up/down quark mass m_q = 3.0(4)(2) MeV at the physical point and a value of the chiral condensate of -(299(26)(29) MeV)^3 in the chiral limit, both in the MSbar scheme at 2 GeV. We have also studied nonperturbative contaminations of our results at small values of the momenta, which are often interpreted as the contribution of the gluon condensate A^2. We do see contributions from such terms, which are, however, not stable over the order in perturbation theory.

The chirally improved quark propagator and restoration of chiral symmetry

The chirally improved (CI) quark propagator in Landau gauge is calculated in two flavor lattice Quantum Chromodynamics. Its wave-function renormalization function Z(p2) and mass function M(p2) are studied. To minimize lattice artifacts, tree-level improvement of the propagator and tree-level correction of the lattice dressing functions is applied. Subsequently the CI quark propagator under Dirac operator low-mode removal is investigated. The dynamically generated mass in the infrared domain of the mass function is found to dissolve continuously as a function of the reduction level and strong suppression of Z(p2) for small momenta is observed.

Role of center vortices in chiral symmetry breaking in SU(3) gauge theory

We study the behavior of the AsqTad quark propagator in Landau gauge on SU(3) Yang-Mills gauge configurations under the removal of center vortices. In SU(2) gauge theory, center vortices have been observed to generate chiral symmetry breaking and dominate the infrared behavior of the quark propagator. In contrast, we report a weak dependence on the vortex content of the gauge configurations, including the survival of dynamical mass generation on configurations with vanishing string tension.

Chiral and deconfinement transition from Dyson-Schwinger equations

We determine the quark condensate and the dressed Polyakov loop from the finite temperature Landau gauge quark propagator evaluated with U(1)-valued boundary conditions in an approximation to quenched QCD. These gauge invariant quantities allow for an investigation of the chiral and deconfinement transitions. We compare results from Dyson-Schwinger equations on a lattice with infinite volume continuum results and study the temperature and quark mass dependence of both quantities. In particular we investigate the chiral condensate and the dressed Polyakov loop in the chiral limit. We also consider an alternative order parameter for the deconfinement transition, the dual scalar quark dressing, and compare it with the dressed Polyakov loop. As a result we find only slightly different transition temperatures for the chiral and the deconfinement transitions at finite quark masses; in the chiral limit both transitions coincide.

Stout-link smearing in lattice fermion actions

The properties of the momentum space quark propagator in Landau gauge are studied for the overlap quark action in quenched lattice QCD. Numerical calculations are performed over four ensembles of gauge configurations, where three are smeared using either 1, 3, or 6 sweeps of stout-link smearing. We calculate the non-perturbative wave function renormalization function $Z(p)$ and the non-perturbative mass function $M(p)$ for a variety of bare quark masses. We find that the wave-function renormalization function is slightly sensitive to the number of stout-link smearing sweeps. For the mass function we find the effect of the stout-link smearing algorithm to be small for moderate to light bare quark masses. For a heavy bare quark mass we find a strong dependence on the number of smearing sweeps.

Center vortices and the quark propagator in SU(2) gauge theory

We study the behavior of the AsqTad quark propagator in Landau gauge on quenched SU(2) gauge configurations under the removal of center vortices. In contrast to recent results in SU(3), we clearly see the infrared enhancement of the mass function disappear if center vortices are removed, a sign of the intimate relation between center vortices and chiral symmetry breaking in SU(2) gauge-field theory. These results provide a benchmark with which to interpret the SU(3) results. In addition, we consider vortex-only configurations. On those, the quark dressing function behaves roughly as on the full configurations, and the mass function picks up an almost linear momentum dependence.

Neutrality of the color-flavor-locked phase in a Dyson-Schwinger approach

The role of neutrality constraints for the phase structure of QCD at nonvanishing chemical potentials is studied within a self-consistent truncation scheme for the Dyson-Schwinger equation of the quark propagator in Landau gauge. We find the (approximate) color-flavor-locked phase to be energetically preferred at all potentially relevant densities and for physical values of the quark masses. We furthermore observe the impossibility to define this phase by residual global symmetries and discuss the role of chemical potentials.

Color-spin locking in a self-consistent Dyson-Schwinger approach

We investigate the color-spin locked phase of spin-one color-superconducting quark matter using a truncated Dyson-Schwinger equation for the quark propagator in Landau gauge. Starting from the most general parity conserving ansatz allowed by the color-spin locked symmetry, the Dyson-Schwinger equation is solved self-consistently and dispersion relations are discussed. We find that chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken due to terms which have previously been neglected. As a consequence, the excitation spectrum contains only gapped modes even for massless quarks. Moreover, at moderate chemical potentials the quasiparticle pairing gaps are several times larger than expected from extrapolated weak-coupling results.

Unquenched quark propagator in Landau gauge

We present an unquenched calculation of the quark propagator in Landau gauge with 2+1 flavors of dynamical quarks. We use configurations generated with an improved staggered (``Asqtad'') action by the MILC collaboration. This quark action has been seen to have excellent rotational symmetry and scaling properties in the quenched quark propagator. Quenched and dynamical calculations are performed on a $20^3\times 64$ lattice with a nominal lattice spacing of $a = 0.125$ fm. The matched quenched and dynamical lattices allow us to investigate the relatively subtle sea quark effects, and even in the quenched case the physical volume of these lattices gives access to lower momenta than our previous study. We calculate the quark mass function and renormalization function for a variety of valence and sea quark masses.

Overlap quark propagator in Landau and Laplacian gauges

The properties of the momentum space quark propagator in Landau gauge and Gribov copy free Laplacian gauge are studied for the overlap quark action in quenched lattice QCD. Numerical calculations are done on a 16 3 × 32 lattice with lattice spacing a = 0.093 fm. We have calculated the nonperturbative momentum-dependent wave function renormalization function Z ( q ) and the nonperturbative mass function M ( p ) for a variety of bare quarks masses and perform a simple linear extrapolation to the chiral limit. We focus on the comparison of the behavior of Z ( q ) and M ( p ) in the chiral limit in the two gauge fixing schemes. We find that the mass functions M ( p ) are very similar for the two gauges while the wave-function renormalization function Z ( q ) is more strongly infrared suppressed in the Laplacian gauge than in the Landau gauge.

Analytic structure of the gluon and quark propagators in Landau gauge QCD

In Landau gauge QCD the infrared behavior of the propagator of transverse gluons can be analytically determined to be a power law from Dyson-Schwinger equations. This propagator clearly shows positivity violation, indicating the absence of the transverse gluons from the physical spectrum, i.e. gluon confinement. A simple analytic structure for the gluon propagator is proposed capturing all important features. We provide arguments that the Landau gauge quark propagator possesses a singularity on the real timelike axis. For this propagator we find a positive definite Schwinger function.

Quark propagator in Landau and Laplacian gauges with overlap fermions

The properties of the momentum space quark propagator in Landau gauge and Gribov copy free Laplacian gauge are studied for the overlap quark action in quenched lattice QCD. Numerical calculations are done on two lattices with different lattice spacing $a$ and the same physical volume. We have calculated the nonperturbative wave function renormalization function $Z(q)$ and the nonperturbative mass function $M(p)$ for a variety of bare quark masses and perform a simple linear extrapolation to the chiral limit. We focus on the comparison of the behavior of $Z(q)$ and $M(p)$ in the chiral limit in the two gauge fixing schemes as well as the behavior on two lattices with different lattice spacing $a$. We find that the mass functions $M(p)$ are very similar for the two gauges while the wave-function renormalization function $Z(q)$ is more strongly infrared suppressed in the Laplacian gauge than in the Landau gauge on the finer lattice. For Laplacian gauge, it seems that the finite $a$ error is large on the coarse lattice which has a lattice spacing $a$ of about 0.124 fm.

Scaling behavior of the overlap quark propagator in the Landau gauge

The properties of the momentum space quark propagator in Landau gauge are examined for the overlap quark action in quenched lattice QCD. Numerical calculations are done on three lattices with different lattice spacings and similar physical volumes to explore the approach of the quark propagator toward the continuum limit. We have calculated the nonperturbative momentum-dependent wave function renormalization function Z(p) and the nonperturbative mass function M(p) for a variety of bare quark masses and perform an extrapolation to the chiral limit. We find the behavior of Z(p) and M(p) are in reasonable agreement between the two finer lattices in the chiral limit, however the data suggest that an even finer lattice is desirable. The large momentum behavior is examined to determine the quark condensate.

Scaling behavior of the landau gauge overlap quark propagator

The properties of the momentum space quark propagator in Landau gauge are examined for the overlap quark action in quenched lattice QCD. Numerical calculations are done on three lattices with different lattice spacings and similar physical volumes to explore the approach of the quark propagator towards the continuum limit. We have calculated the nonperturbative momentum-dependent wavefunction renormalization function $Z(p^2)$ and the nonperturbative mass function $M(p^2)$ for a variety of bare quark masses and extrapolate to the chiral limit. We find the behavior of $Z(p^2)$ and $M(p^2)$ are in good agreement for the two finer lattices in the chiral limit. The quark condensate is also calculated.

Towards the continuum limit of the overlap quark propagator in Landau gauge

The properties of the momentum space quark propagator in Landau gauge are examined for the overlap quark action in quenched lattice QCD. Numerical calculations were done on two lattices with different lattice spacing a and similar physical volumes to explore the quark propagator in the continuum limit. We have calculated the nonperturbative wavefunction renormalization function Z(p) and the nonperturbative mass function M(p) for a variety of bare quark masses and perform a simple linear extrapolation to the chiral limit. We find the behaviour of Z(p) and M(p) in the chiral limit are in good agreement between the two lattices.

Overlap quark propagator in the Landau gauge

The properties of the quark propagator in Landau gauge in quenched QCD are examined for the overlap quark action. The overlap quark action satisfies the Ginsparg-Wilson relation and as such provides an exact lattice realization of chiral symmetry. This in turn implies that the quark action is free of ${\cal O}(a)$ errors. We present results using the standard Wilson fermion kernel in the overlap formalism on a $12^3\times 24$ lattice at a spacing of 0.125 fm. We obtain the nonperturbative momentum-dependent wavefunction renormalization function $Z(p)$ and the nonperturbative mass function $M(p)$ for a variety of bare masses. We perform a simple extrapolation to the chiral limit for these functions. We clearly observe the dynamically generated infrared mass and confirm the qualitative behavior found for the Landau gauge quark propagator in earlier studies. We attempt to extract the quark condensate from the asymptotic behavior of the mass function in the chiral limit.