2017/11/30 by Ralf Hofmann
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Cosmic microwave background #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Gauge theory #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum chromodynamics #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Radiative transfer #Resummation #Theoretical physics #physics.gen-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/epjconf/201818202053
published as EPJ Web Conf. 182, 02053 (2018) · 12 pp, 1 fig, invited plenary talk at ICNFP 2017, Kolymbari, Crete; v2: removal of minor typos
arxiv created 2017/12/08 · openalex publication_date 2018/01/01 · arxiv updated 2018/08/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We review and explain essential characteristics of the a priori estimate of the thermal ground state and its excitations in the deconfining phase of SU(2) Quantum Yang-Mills thermodynamics. This includes the spatially central and peripheral structure of Harrington-Shepard (anti)calorons, a sketch on how a spatial coarse-graining over (anti)caloron centers yields an inert scalar field, which is responsible for an adjoint Higgs mechanism, the identification of (anti)caloron action with ħ, a discussion of how, owing to (anti)caloron structure, the thermal ground state can be excited (wave-like and particlelike massless modes, massive thermal quasiparticle fluctuations), the principle role of and accounting for radiative corrections, the exclusion of energy-sign combinations due to constraints on momenta transfers in four-vertices in a completely fixed, physical gauge, dihedral diagrams and their resummation up to infinite loop order in the massive sector, and the resummation of the one-loop polarisation tensor of the massless modes. We also outline applications of deconfining SU(2) Yang-Mills thermodynamics to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) which affect the cosmological model at high redshifts, the redshift for re-ionization of the Universe, the CMB angular power spectra at low l, and the late-time emergence of intergalactic magnetic fields.