No Arabic abstract
We discuss the spontaneous breakdown of chiral symmetry in Quantum Chromodynamics by considering gluonic instanton configurations in the partition function. It is shown that in order to obtain nontrivial fermionic correlators in a two dimensional gauge theory for the strong interactions among quarks, a regular instanton background has to be taken into account. We work over massless quarks in the -fundamental- representation of SU(N_c). For large N_c, massive quarks are also considered.
This is the second paper of the series aimed at understanding the ensemble of instanton-dyons, now with two flavors of light dynamical quarks. The partition function is appended by the fermionic factor, $(det T)^{N_f}$ and Dirac eigenvalue spectra at small values are derived from the numerical simulation of 64 and 128 dyons. Those spectra show clear chiral symmetry breaking pattern at high dyon density.
We study anomalous chiral symmetry breaking in two-flavour QCD induced by gravitational and QCD-instantons within asymptotically safe gravity within the functional renormalisation group approach. Similarly to QCD-instantons, gravitational ones, associated to a K3-surface connected by a wormhole-like throat in flat spacetime, generate contributions to the t~Hooft coupling proportional to $exp(-1/g_N)$ with the dimensionless Newton coupling $g_N$. Hence, in the asymptotically safe gravity scenario with a non-vanishing fixed point coupling $g_N^*$, the induced t Hooft coupling is finite at the Planck scale, and its size depends on the chosen UV-completion. Within this scenario the gravitational effects on anomalous $U(1)_A$-breaking at the Planck scale may survive at low energy scales. In turn, fermion masses of the order of the Planck scale cannot be present. This constrains the allowed asymptotically safe UV-completion of the Gravity-QCD system. We map-out the parameter regime that is compatible with the existence of light fermions in the low-energy regime.
The effects of an external field on the dynamics of chiral symmetry breaking are studied using quenched, ladder QED as our model gauge field theory. It is found that a uniform external magnetic field enables the chiral symmetry to be spontaneously broken at weak gauge couplings, in contrast with the situation when no external field is present. The broken chiral symmetry is restored at high temperatures as well as at high chemical potentials. The nature of the two chiral phase transitions is different: the transition at high temperatures is a continuous one whereas the phase transition at high chemical potentials is discontinuous.
Superconformal indices of 4d N=1 SYM theories with SU(N) and SP(2N) gauge groups are investigated for N_f=N and N_f=N+1 flavors, respectively. These indices vanish for generic values of the flavor fugacities. However, for a singular submanifold of fugacities they behave like the Dirac delta functions and describe the chiral symmetry breaking phenomenon. Similar picture holds for partition functions of 3d supersymmetric field theories with the chiral symmetry breaking.
We compare gap equation predictions for the spontaneous breaking of global symmetries in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory to nonperturbative results from holomorphic effective action techniques. In the theory without matter fields, both approaches describe the formation of a gluino condensate. With $N_f$ flavors of quark and squark fields, and with $N_f$ below a certain critical value, the coupled gap equations have a solution for quark and gluino condensate formation, corresponding to breaking of global symmetries and of supersymmetry. This appears to disagree with the newer nonperturbative techniques, but the reliability of gap equations in this context and whether the solution represents the ground state remain unclear.