We present a new method to obtain spectral properties of a non-Abelian gauge theory in the region where occupation numbers are high. The method to measure the (single-particle) spectral function is based on linear response theory and classical-statistical lattice simulations. Although we apply it to a system far from equilibrium in a self-similar regime, the extracted spectral function can be understood within the hard thermal loop (HTL) formalism and can thus be connected to thermal equilibrium at high temperatures. This allows us to obtain quantities like the lifetime of quasiparticles that are beyond the leading order and difficult to compute within HTL. The approach has the potential to measure transport coefficients, to study the earliest stages of heavy-ion collisions in a controlled way and it can be employed beyond the range of validity of HTL.
We study the spectral properties of a highly occupied non-Abelian non-equilibrium plasma appearing ubiquitously in weak coupling descriptions of QCD matter. The spectral function of this far-from-equilibrium plasma is measured by employing linear response theory in classical-statistical real-time lattice Yang-Mills simulations. We establish the existence of transversely and longitudinally polarized quasiparticles and obtain their dispersion relations, effective mass, plasmon frequency, damping rate and further structures in the spectral and statistical functions. Our new method can be interpreted as a non-perturbative generalization of hard thermal loop (HTL) effective theory. We see indications that our results approach leading order HTL in the appropriate limit. The method can also be employed beyond the range of validity of HTL.
We study how to numerically simulate quantum fermions out of thermal equilibrium, in the context of electroweak baryogenesis. We find that by combining the lattice implementation of Aarts and Smit [1] with the low cost fermions of Borsanyi and Hindmarsh [2], we are able to describe the dynamics of a classical bosonic system coupled to quantum fermions, that correctly reproduces anomalous baryon number violation. To demonstrate the method, we apply it to the 1+1 dimensional axial U(1) model, and perform simulations of a fast symmetry breaking transition. Compared to solving all the quantum mode equations as in [1], we find that this statistical approach may lead to a significant gain in computational time, when applied to 3+1 dimensional physics.
The soft gluon limit of the longitudinal part of the quark-gluon vertex is studied by resorting to non-perturbative approaches to Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). Based on a Slavnov-Taylor identity (STI), the longitudinal form factors is expressed in terms of the quark-ghost kernel, the quark self energy and the quark wave function. An exact relation between the non-vanishing longitudinal form factors is derived for the soft gluon limit and explored to understand the behaviour of the vertex. Within a Ball-Chiu vertex, the form factor $lambda_1$ was analysed using recent lattice simulations for full QCD for the soft gluon limit. The lattice data shows that the gluon propagator resumes the momentum dependence of such component of the vertex. This connection is understood via a fully dressed one-loop Bethe-Salpeter equation. The behaviour of the remaining longitudinal form factors $lambda_2(p^2)$ and $lambda_3(p^2)$ is investigated combining both the information of lattice simulations and the derived relations based on the STI.
We employ the functional renormalization group approach formulated on the Schwinger-Keldysh contour to calculate real-time correlation functions in scalar field theories. We provide a detailed description of the formalism, discuss suitable truncation schemes for real-time calculations as well as the numerical procedure to self-consistently solve the flow equations for the spectral function. Subsequently, we discuss the relations to other perturbative and non-perturbative approaches to calculate spectral functions, and present a detailed comparison and benchmark in $d=0+1$ dimensions.
Far-from-equilibrium dynamics of SU(2) gauge theory with Wilson fermions is studied in 1+1 space-time dimensions using a real-time lattice approach. Lattice improved Hamiltonians are shown to be very efficient in simulating Schwinger pair creation and emergent phenomena such as plasma oscillations. As a consequence, significantly smaller lattices can be employed to approach continuum physics in the infinite-volume limit as compared to unimproved implementations. This allows us to compute also higher-order correlation functions including four fermion fields, which give unprecedented insights into the real-time dynamics of the fragmentation process of strings between fermions and antifermions.