No Arabic abstract
We use lattice Monte Carlo simulations to study non-perturbatively the tension, i.e. the free energy per unit length, of an infinitely long vortex in the three-dimensional U(1)+Higgs theory. This theory is the low-energy effective theory of high-temperature scalar electrodynamics, the standard framework for cosmic string studies. The vortex tension is measured as a function of the mass parameter at a large value of the Higgs self-coupling, where the transition between the phases is continuous. It is shown that the tension gives an order parameter that can distinguish between the two phases of the system. We argue that the vortex tension can describe the physics of long strings without lattice artifacts, unlike vortex network percolation.
We study the three-dimensional U(1)+Higgs theory (Ginzburg-Landau model) as an effective theory for finite temperature phase transitions from the 1 K scale of superconductivity to the relativistic scales of scalar electrodynamics. The relations between the parameters of the physical theory and the parameters of the 3d effective theory are given. The 3d theory as such is studied with lattice Monte Carlo techniques. The phase diagram, the characteristics of the transition in the first order regime, and scalar and vector correlation lengths are determined. We find that even rather deep in the first order regime, the transition is weaker than indicated by 2-loop perturbation theory. Topological effects caused by the compact formulation are studied, and it is demonstrated that they vanish in the continuum limit. In particular, the photon mass (inverse correlation length) is observed to be zero within statistical errors in the symmetric phase, thus constituting an effective order parameter.
The three-dimensional lattice Higgs model with compact U(1) gauge symmetry and unit charge is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The full model with fluctuating Higgs amplitude is simulated, and both energy as well as topological observables are measured. The data show a Higgs and a confined phase separated by a well-defined phase boundary, which is argued to be caused by proliferating vortices. For fixed gauge coupling, the phase boundary consists of a line of first-order phase transitions at small Higgs self-coupling, ending at a critical point. The phase boundary then continues as a Kertesz line across which thermodynamic quantities are nonsingular. Symmetry arguments are given to support these findings.
We apply a semi-classical method to compute the conformal field theory (CFT) data for the U(N)xU(N) non-abelian Higgs theory in four minus epsilon dimensions at its complex fixed point. The theory features more than one coupling and walking dynamics. Given our charge configuration, we identify a family of corresponding operators and compute their scaling dimensions which remarkably agree with available results from conventional perturbation theory validating the use of the state-operator correspondence for a complex CFT.
We study the three-dimensional (3D) compact U(1) lattice gauge theory coupled with $N$-flavor Higgs fields by means of the Monte Carlo simulations. This model is relevant to multi-component superconductors, antiferromagnetic spin systems in easy plane, inflational cosmology, etc. It is known that there is no phase transition in the N=1 model. For N=2, we found that the system has a second-order phase transition line $tilde{c}_1(c_2)$ in the $c_2$(gauge coupling)$-c_1$(Higgs coupling) plane, which separates the confinement phase and the Higgs phase. Numerical results suggest that the phase transition belongs to the universality class of the 3D XY model as the previous works by Babaev et al. and Smiseth et al. suggested. For N=3, we found that there exists a critical line similar to that in the N=2 model, but the critical line is separated into two parts; one for $c_2 < c_{2{rm tc}}=2.4pm 0.1$ with first-order transitions, and the other for $ c_{2{rm tc}} < c_2$ with second-order transitions, indicating the existence of a tricritical point. We verified that similar phase diagram appears for the N=4 and N=5 systems. We also studied the case of anistropic Higgs coupling in the N=3 model and found that there appear two second-order phase transitions or a single second-order transition and a crossover depending on the values of the anisotropic Higgs couplings. This result indicates that an enhancement of phase transition occurs when multiple phase transitions coincide at a certain point in the parameter space.
We describe how the strings, which are classical solutions of the continuum three-dimensional U(1)+Higgs theory, can be studied on the lattice. The effect of an external magnetic field is also discussed and the first results on the string free energy are presented. It is shown that the string free energy can be used as an order parameter when the scalar self-coupling is large and the transition is continuous.