2018/05/02 by Jeff Greensite, Kazue Matsuyama · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.supr-con #hep-lat #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.98.074504
published as Phys. Rev. D 98, 074504 (2018) · 20 pages, 14 figures. v2: new section VII, other minor revisions. Version to appear in PRD
arxiv published 2018/05/02 · arxiv created 2018/09/21 · arxiv updated 2019/04/02
In SU(N) gauge-Higgs theories, with a single Higgs field in the fundamental representation, there exists in addition to the local gauge symmetry a global SU(2) symmetry, at N=2, and a global U(1) symmetry, for N ≠ 2. We construct a gauge-invariant order parameter for the breaking of these global symmetries in the Higgs sector, and calculate numerically the transition lines, in coupling-constant space, for SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theories with unimodular Higgs fields. The order parameter is non-local, and therefore its non-analyticity does not violate the theorem proved by Osterwalder and Seiler. We then show that there exists a transition, in gauge-Higgs theories, between two types of confinement: ordinary color neutrality in the Higgs region, and a stronger condition, which we have called "separation-of-charge confinement," in the confinement region. We conjecture that the symmetry-breaking transition coincides with the transition between these two physically different types of confinement.