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A lattice implementation of the recently introduced center-symmetric Landau gauge is discussed and its predictions confronted with numerical Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that the link average and the link correlators computed in that gauge are order parameters of the confinement-deconfinement transition at nonzero temperature. Strictly speaking, this requires a specific treatment of the Gribov copies that we discuss in detail. The numerical simulations comply with the theoretical predictions for the link average computed below and above the deconfinement temperature. Our results show that, within appropriately chosen gauges, one can construct local order parameters for center symmetry, as proxies for the non-local Polyakov loop., Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures

We revisit the nonabelian dipole problem in the context of a simple semiclassical approach which incorporates some essential features of the infrared sector of Yang-Mills theories in the Landau gauge, in particular, the fact that the running coupling remains of moderate size at infrared scales. We obtain a simple flux-tube solution in a controlled approximation scheme, that we compare to the results of lattice simulations., Comment: 6 pages; 3 figures

Lightcurves of many classical novae deviate from the canonical "fast rise - smooth decline" pattern and display complex variability behavior. We present the first TESS-space-photometry-based investigation of this phenomenon. We use TESS Sector 41 full-frame images to extract a lightcurve of the slow Galactic nova V606 Vul that erupted nine days prior to the start of the TESS observations. The lightcurve covers the first of two major peaks of V606 Vul that was reached 19 days after the start of the eruption. The nova reached its brightest visual magnitude V=9.9 in its second peak 64 days after the eruption onset, following the completion of Sector 41 observations. To increase the confidence level of the extracted lightcurve, we performed the analysis using four different codes implementing the aperture photometry (Lightkurve, VaST) and image subtraction (TESSreduce, tequila_shots) and find good agreement between them. We performed ground-based photometric and spectroscopic monitoring to complement the TESS data. The TESS lightcurve reveals two features: periodic variations (0.12771d, 0.01mag average peak-to-peak amplitude) that disappeared when the source was within 1mag of peak optical brightness and a series of isolated mini-flares (with peak-to-peak amplitudes of up to 0.5mag) appearing at seemingly random times. We interpret the periodic variations as the result of azimuthal asymmetry of the photosphere engulfing the nova-hosting binary that was distorted by and rotating with the binary. Whereas we use spectra to associate the two major peaks in the nova lightcurve with distinct episodes of mass ejection, the origin of mini-flares remains elusive., Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures, submitted to ApJ; comments welcome

We continue our investigation of the QCD dynamics in terms of the Curci-Ferrari effective Lagrangian, a deformation of the Faddeev-Popov one in the Landau gauge with a tree-level gluon mass term. In a previous work we have studied the dynamics of chiral symmetry breaking at the level of the quark propagator and, in particular, the dynamical generation of a constituent quark mass. In the present article, we study the associated Goldstone mode, the pion, and we compute the pion decay constant in the chiral limit. Our approach exploits the fact that the coupling (defined in the Taylor scheme) in the pure gauge sector is perturbative, as observed in lattice simulations which, together with a $1/N_c$-expansion, allows for a systematic, controllable approximation scheme in the low energy regime of QCD. At leading order, this leads to the well-known rainbow-ladder resummation. We study the region of parameter space of the model that gives physical values of the pion decay constant. This allows one to constrain the gluon mass parameter as a function of the coupling using a physically measured quantity., Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures

Lattice simulations of the QCD correlation functions in the Landau gauge have established two remarkable facts. First, the coupling constant in the gauge sector remains finite and moderate at all scales, suggesting that some kind of perturbative description should be valid down to infrared momenta. Second, the gluon propagator reaches a finite nonzero value at vanishing momentum, corresponding to a gluon screening mass. We review recent studies which aim at describing the long-distance properties of Landau gauge QCD by means of the perturbative Curci-Ferrari model. The latter is the simplest deformation of the Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian in the Landau gauge that includes a gluon screening mass at tree-level. There are, by now, strong evidences that this approach successfully describes many aspects of the infrared QCD dynamics. In particular, several correlation functions were computed at one- and two-loop orders and compared with {\it ab-initio} lattice simulations. The typical error is of the order of ten percent for a one-loop calculation and drops to few percents at two loops. We review such calculations in the quenched approximation as well as in the presence of dynamical quarks. In the latter case, the spontaneous breaking of the chiral symmetry requires to go beyond a coupling expansion but can still be described in a controlled approximation scheme in terms of small parameters. We also review applications of the approach to nonzero temperature and chemical potential., Comment: 51 pages, 29 figures

We propose a novel approach to the confinement-deconfinement transition in Yang-Mills theories in the context of gauge-fixed calculations. The method is based on a background-field generalisation of the Landau gauge (to which it reduces at vanishing temperature) with a given, center-symmetric background. This is to be contrasted with most implementations of background field methods in gauge theories, where one uses a variable, self-consistent background. Our proposal is a bona fide gauge fixing that can easily be implemented on the lattice and in continuum approaches. The resulting gauge-fixed action explicitly exhibits the center symmetry of the nonzero temperature theory that controls the confinement-deconfinement transition. We show that, in that gauge, the electric susceptibility diverges at a second order transition [e.g., in the SU(2) theory], so that the gluon propagator is a clear probe of the transition. We implement our proposal in the perturbative Curci-Ferrari model, known for its successful description of various infrared aspects of Yang-Mills theories, including the confinement-deconfinement transition. Our one-loop calculation confirms our general expectation for the susceptibility while providing transition temperatures in excellent agreement with the SU(2) and SU(3) lattice values. Finally, the Polyakov loops above the transition show a more moderate rise, in contrast to previous implementations of the Curci-Ferrari model using a self-consistent background, and our SU(3) result agrees quite well with lattice results in the range $[0,2T_c]$., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures

We investigate the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in QCD by means of a recently proposed approximation scheme in the Landau-gauge Curci-Ferrari model, which combines an expansion in the Yang-Mills coupling and in the inverse number of colors, without expanding in the quark-gluon coupling. The expansion allows for a consistent treatment of ultraviolet tails via renormalization group techniques. At leading order, it leads to the resummation of rainbow diagrams for the quark propagator, with, however, a trivial running of both the gluon mass and the quark-gluon coupling. In a previous work, by using a simple model for a more realistic running of these parameters, we could reproduce the known phenomenology of chiral symmetry breaking, including a satisfactory description of the lattice data for the quark mass function. Here, we get rid of this model-dependence by taking our approximation scheme to next-to-leading order. This allows us to consistently include the realistic running of the parameters and to access the unquenched gluon and ghost propagators to first nontrivial order, which we can compare to available lattice data for an even more stringent test of our approach. In particular, our results for the various two-point functions compare well with lattice data while the parameters of the model are strongly constrained., Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures

We investigate the generation of a gluon screening mass in Yang-Mills theory in the Landau gauge. We propose a gauge-fixing procedure where the Gribov ambiguity is overcome by summing over all Gribov copies with some weight function. This can be formulated in terms of a local field theory involving constrained, nonlinear sigma model fields. We show that a phenomenon of radiative symmetry restoration occurs in this theory, similar to what happens in the standard nonlinear sigma model in two dimensions. This results in a nonzero gluon screening mass, as seen in lattice simulations., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

We propose a $1/N$ expansion of Starobinsky and Yokoyama's effective stochastic approach for light quantum fields on superhorizon scales in de Sitter spacetime. We explicitly compute the spectrum and the eigenfunctions of the Fokker-Planck operator for a O($N$)-symmetric theory with quartic selfinteraction at leading and next-to-leading orders in this expansion. We obtain simple analytical expressions valid in various nonperturbative regimes in terms of the interaction coupling constant., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

The quantum fluctuations of a test scalar field on superhorizon scale in de Sitter spacetime can be described by an effective one-dimensional stochastic theory corresponding to a particular class of nonequilibrium dynamical systems known as the model A. Using the formulation of the latter in terms of a supersymmetric field theory, we compute various unequal-time correlators at large (superhorizon) time separations and compare with existing quantum field theory computation. This includes perturbative calculations, pushed here up to three-loop order, and a nonperturbative $1/N$ expansion at next-to-leading order. Exploiting the supersymmetry of the stochastic theory, we also derive a spectral representation of the field correlators and a fluctuation-dissipation relation for the infrared modes of the scalar field in de Sitter spacetime., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures; typos corrected, references added, minor changes in Sec. 4C, figures updated

We study the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter with light quarks using a recently proposed, small parameter approach to infrared QCD in the Landau gauge. This is based on an expansion with respect to both the inverse number of colors and the pure Yang-Mills coupling in the presence of a Curci-Ferrari mass term. At leading order, this leads to the well-known rainbow equation for the quark propagator with a massive gluon propagator. We solve the latter at nonzero temperature and chemical potential using a simple semi-analytic approximation known to capture the essence of chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum. In the chiral limit, we find a tricritical point which becomes a critical endpoint in the presence of a nonzero bare quark mass, in agreement with the results of nonperturbative functional methods and model calculations. This supports the view that the present approach allows for a systematic study of the QCD phase diagram in a controlled expansion scheme., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures

We study the backreaction of gravitationally amplified quantum fluctuations of scalar fields on a classical de Sitter geometry. We formulate the problem in the framework of the Wilsonian renormalisation group, which allows us to treat the scalar field fluctuations in a nonperturbative manner and to follow the renormalisation flow of the spacetime curvature as long wavelength, superhorizon fluctuations are progressively integrated out. For light fields in units of the spacetime curvature, these are described by an effective zero-dimensional field theory and can essentially be computed analytically. A nontrivial flow of the spacetime curvature is induced either by a nonminimal coupling to gravity or by self-interactions. The latter leads to a decrease of the spacetime curvature through loop effects, which, for minimally coupled, massless fields, grow unbounded in the infrared. However, such large loop contributions are eventually screened by the dynamical generation of a nonperturbative, gravitationally induced mass and the renormalisation of the spacetime curvature saturates to a nonzero value. Finally, we show that, in the case of spontaneously broken continuous symmetries, the Goldstone modes do not contribute to the infrared flow of the spacetime curvature, despite being strongly amplified by the gravitational field., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures

We study the backreaction of superhorizon fluctuations of a light quantum scalar field on a classical de Sitter geometry by means of the Wilsonian renormalisation group. This allows us to treat the gravitationally amplified fluctuations in a nonperturbative manner and to analytically follow the induced renormalisation flow of the spacetime curvature as long wavelength modes are progressively integrated out. Unbounded loop corrections in the deep infrared are eventually screened by nonperturbative effects which stabilise the geometry., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure

The flavor dependence of the QCD phase diagram presents universal properties in the heavy quark limit. For the wide class of models where the quarks are treated at the one-loop level, we show, for arbitrary chemical potential, that the flavor dependence of the critical quark masses-for which the confinement-deconfinement transition is second order-is insensitive to the details of the (confining) gluon dynamics and that the critical temperature is constant along the corresponding critical line. We illustrate this with explicit results in various such one-loop models studied in the literature: effective matrix models for the Polyakov loop, the Curci-Ferrari model, and a recently proposed Gribov-Zwanziger-type model. We further observe that the predictions which follow from this one-loop universality property are well satisfied by different calculations beyond one-loop order, including lattice simulations. For degenerate quarks, we propose a simple universal law for the flavor dependence of the critical mass, satisfied by all approaches., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure ; published version

We extend a previous investigation of the QCD phase diagram with heavy quarks in the context of background field methods by including the two-loop corrections to the background field effective potential. The nonperturbative dynamics in the pure-gauge sector is modeled by a phenomenological gluon mass term in the Landau-DeWitt gauge-fixed action, which results in an improved perturbative expansion. We investigate the phase diagram at nonzero temperature and (real or imaginary) chemical potential. Two-loop corrections yield an improved agreement with lattice data as compared to the leading-order results. We also compare with the results of nonperturbative approaches. We further study the equation of state as well as the thermodynamic stability of the system at two-loop order. Finally, we show, using simple thermodynamic arguments, that the behavior of the Polyakov loops as functions of the chemical potential complies with their interpretation in terms of quark and anti-quark free energies., Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures

We study the long-distance properties of quantum chromodynamics in an expansion in powers of the three-gluon, four-gluon, and ghost-gluon couplings, but without expanding in the quark-gluon coupling. This is motivated by two observations. First, the gauge sector is well-described by perturbation theory in the context of a phenomenological model with a massive gluon. Second, the quark-gluon coupling is significantly larger than those in the gauge sector at large distances. In order to resum the contributions of the remaining infinite set of QED-like diagrams, we further expand the theory in $1/N_c$, where $N_c$ is the number of colors. At leading order, this double expansion leads to the well-known rainbow approximation for the quark propagator. We take advantage of the systematic expansion to get a renormalization-group improvement of the rainbow resummation. A simple numerical solution of the resulting coupled set of equations reproduces the phenomenology of the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking: for sufficiently large quark-gluon coupling constant, the constituent quark mass saturates when its valence mass approaches zero. We find very good agreement with lattice data for the scalar part of the propagator and explain why the vectorial part is poorly reproduced., Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures

We study the Landau gauge correlators of Yang-Mills fields for infrared Euclidean momenta in the context of a massive extension of the Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian which, we argue, underlies a variety of continuum approaches. Standard (perturbative) renormalization group techniques with a specific, infrared-safe renormalization scheme produce so-called decoupling and scaling solutions for the ghost and gluon propagators, which correspond to nontrivial infrared fixed points. The decoupling fixed point is infrared stable and weakly coupled, while the scaling fixed point is unstable and generically strongly coupled except for low dimensions $d\to2$. Under the assumption that such a scaling fixed point exists beyond one-loop order, we find that the corresponding ghost and gluon scaling exponents are, respectively, $2\alpha_F=2-d$ and $2\alpha_G=d$ at all orders of perturbation theory in the present renormalization scheme. We discuss the relation between the ghost wave function renormalization, the gluon screening mass, the scale of spectral positivity violation, and the gluon mass parameter. We also show that this scaling solution does not realize the standard Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin symmetry of the Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian. Finally, we discuss our findings in relation to the results of nonperturbative continuum methods., Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, published version (PRD)

Nonperturbative renormalization group techniques have recently proven a powerful tool to tackle the nontrivial infrared dynamics of light scalar fields in de Sitter space. In the present article, we develop the formalism beyond the local potential approximation employed in earlier works. In particular, we consider the derivative expansion, a systematic expansion in powers of field derivatives, appropriate for long wavelength modes, that we generalize to the relevant case of a curved metric with Lorentzian signature. The method is illustrated with a detailed discussion of the so-called local potential approximation prime which, on top of the full effective potential, includes a running (but field-independent) field renormalization. We explicitly compute the associated anomalous dimension for O(N) theories. We find that it can take large values along the flow, leading to sizable differences as compared to the local potential approximation. However, it does not prevent the phenomenon of gravitationally induced dimensional reduction pointed out in previous studies. We show that, as a consequence, the effective potential at the end of the flow is unchanged as compared to the local potential approximation, the main effect of the running anomalous dimension being merely to slow down the flow., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures ; Published version (PRD)

We compute the finite temperature ghost and gluon propagators of Yang-Mills theory in the Landau-DeWitt gauge. The background field that enters the definition of the latter is intimately related with the (gauge-invariant) Polyakov loop and serves as an equivalent order parameter for the deconfinement transition. We use an effective gauge-fixed description where the nonperturbative infrared dynamics of the theory is parametrized by a gluon mass which, as argued elsewhere, may originate from the Gribov ambiguity. In this scheme, one can perform consistent perturbative calculations down to infrared momenta, which have been shown to correctly describe the phase diagram of Yang-Mills theories in four dimensions as well as the zero-temperature correlators computed in lattice simulations. In this article, we provide the one-loop expressions of the finite temperature Landau-DeWitt ghost and gluon propagators for a large class of gauge groups and present explicit results for the SU(2) case. These are substantially different from those previously obtained in the Landau gauge, which corresponds to a vanishing background field. The nonanalyticity of the order parameter across the transition is directly imprinted onto the propagators in the various color modes. In the SU(2) case, this leads, for instance, to a cusp in the electric and magnetic gluon susceptibilities as well as similar signatures in the ghost sector. We mention the possibility that such distinctive features of the transition could be measured in lattice simulations in the background field gauge studied here., Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures; published version

We study the confinement-deconfinement phase transition of pure Yang-Mills theories at finite temperature using a simple massive extension of standard background field methods. We generalize our recent next-to-leading-order perturbative calculation of the Polyakov loop and of the related background field effective potential for the SU(2) theory to any compact and connex Lie group with a simple Lie algebra. We discuss in detail the SU(3) theory, where the two-loop corrections yield improved values for the first-order transition temperature as compared to the one-loop result. We also show that certain one-loop artifacts of thermodynamical observables disappear at two-loop order, as was already the case for the SU(2) theory. In particular, the entropy and the pressure are positive for all temperatures. Finally, we discuss the groups SU(4) and Sp(2) which shed interesting light, respectively, on the relation between the (de)confinement of static matter sources in the various representations of the gauge group and on the use of the background field itself as an order parameter for confinement. In both cases, we obtain first-order transitions, in agreement with lattice simulations and other continuum approaches., Comment: 35 pages, 20 figures

We study the dynamics of light quantum scalar fields in de Sitter space on superhorizon scales. We compute the self-energy of an O(N) symmetric theory at next-to-leading order in a 1/N expansion in the regime of superhorizon momenta, and we obtain an exact analytical solution of the corresponding Dyson-Schwinger equations for the two-point correlator. This amounts to resumming the infinite series of nonlocal self-energy insertions, which typically generate spurious infrared and/or secular divergences. The potentially large de Sitter logarithms resum into well-behaved power laws from which we extract the field strength and mass renormalization. The nonperturbative 1/N expansion allows us to discuss the case of vanishing and negative tree-level square mass, which both correspond to strongly coupled effective theories in the infrared., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, published version (Phys. Rev. D)

We investigate scalar field theories in de Sitter space by means of nonperturbative renormalization group techniques. We compute the functional flow equation for the effective potential of O(N) theories in the local potential approximation and we study the onset of curvature-induced effects as quantum fluctuations are progressively integrated out from subhorizon to superhorizon scales. This results in a dimensional reduction of the original action to an effective zero-dimensional Euclidean theory. We show that the latter is equivalent both to the late-time equilibrium state of the stochastic approach of Starobinsky and Yokoyama and to the effective theory for the zero mode on Euclidean de Sitter space. We investigate the immediate consequences of this dimensional reduction: symmetry restoration and dynamical mass generation., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; published version (PRD)

We consider Yang-Mills theories in a recently proposed family of nonlinear covariant gauges that consistently deals with the issue of Gribov ambiguities. Such gauges provide a generalization of the Curci-Ferrari-Delbourgo-Jarvis gauges which can be formulated as an extremization procedure and might be implemented in numerical calculations. This would allow for nonperturbative studies of Yang-Mills correlators in a broad class of covariant gauges continuously connected to the well-studied Landau gauge. We compute the ghost and gluon propagators in the continuum formulation at one-loop order in perturbation theory and we study their momentum dependence down to the deep infrared regime, with and without renormalization group improvement. In particular, we show that the theory admits infrared-safe renormalization-group trajectories with no Landau pole. Both the gluon and the ghost behave as massive fields at low energy, and the gluon propagator is transverse even away from the Landau gauge limit. We compare our results to those obtained in the usual Curci-Ferrari model, which allows us to pinpoint the specific effects arising from our treatment of Gribov copies., Comment: 23 pages. 24 figures. One suplemental material: Mathematica file with the full expressions of the one-loop Feynman diagrams

We investigate the phase diagram of QCD with heavy quarks at finite temperature and chemical potential in the context of background field methods. In particular, we use a massive extension of the Landau-DeWitt gauge which is motivated by previous studies of the deconfinement phase transition in pure Yang-Mills theories. We show that a simple one-loop calculation is able to capture the richness of the phase diagram in the heavy quark region, both at real and imaginary chemical potential. Moreover, dimensionless ratios of quantities directly measurable in numerical simulations are in good agreement with lattice results., Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, published version (minor corrections)

We investigate the deconfinement transition of static quarks in SU(N) Yang-Mills theories using a perturbative approach based on a massive extension of the Landau-DeWitt gauge-fixed action, where the gluon mass term is related to the issue of Gribov ambiguities. A leading-order, one-loop calculation of the effective potential for the Polyakov loop produces a deconfinement transition of second order for the SU(2) theory and of first order for SU(3) with transition temperatures in qualitative agreement with known values. We also report on the results of a two-loop calculation of the critical temperature and of thermodynamical quantities in the SU(2) case., Comment: Contribution to the conference CPOD 2014 (10 pages); Minor corrections and citation added; To appear in PoS

In a recent work we have proposed a perturbative approach for the study of the phase transition of pure Yang-Mills theories at finite temperature. This is based on a simple massive extension of background field methods in the Landau-DeWitt gauge, where the gluon mass term is related to the existence of Gribov ambiguities. We have shown that a one-loop calculation of the background field effective potential describes well the phase structure of the SU(2) and SU(3) theories. Here, we present the calculation of the next-to-leading-order contribution in perturbation theory for the SU(2) case. In particular, we compute the background field effective potential at two-loop order and the corresponding Polyakov loop, a gauge invariant order parameter of the transition, at one-loop order. We show that the two-loop correction brings the critical temperature closer to its actual value as compared to the previous one-loop result. We also compute the thermodynamic pressure as a function of the temperature and show that two-loop contributions play an important role in the vicinity of the phase transition., Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures, published version (PRD)

We derive the most general evolution equations describing in-medium (anti)neutrino propagation in the mean-field approximation. In particular, we consider various types of neutrino-antineutrino mixing, for both Dirac and Majorana fields, resulting either from nontrivial pair correlations or from helicity coherence due to the nonvanishing neutrino masses. We show that, unless the medium is spatially homogeneous and isotropic, these correlations are sourced by the usual neutrino and antineutrino densities. This may be of importance in astrophysical environments such as core-collapse supernovae., Comment: 16 pages

We consider a simple massive extension of the Landau-DeWitt gauge for SU($N$) Yang-Mills theory. We compute the corresponding one-loop effective potential for a temporal background gluon field at finite temperature. At this order the background field is simply related to the Polyakov loop, the order parameter of the deconfinement transition. Our perturbative calculation correctly describes a quark confining phase at low temperature and a phase transition of second order for $N=2$ and weakly first order for $N=3$. Our estimates for the transition temperatures are in qualitative agreement with values from lattice simulations or from other continuum approaches. Finally, we discuss the effective gluon mass parameter in relation to the Gribov ambiguities of the Landau-DeWitt gauge., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

We report on the recent proposal of a class of nonlinear covariant gauges that can be formulated as an extremization procedure which admits a simple discretization well-suited to numerical minimization techniques. This class of gauges is continuously connected to the Landau gauge and, in the ultraviolet, where one can ignore Gribov ambiguities, it reduces to the Curci-Ferrari-Delbourgo-Jarvis gauges., Comment: Contribution to "QCD-TNT-III-From quarks and gluons to hadronic matter: A bridge too far?", 2-6 Sept 2013, ECT*, Trento, Italy; 7 pages

We consider the two-point correlators of Yang-Mills theories at finite temperature in the Landau gauge. We employ a model for the corresponding Yang-Mills correlators based on the inclusion of an effective mass term for gluons. The latter is expected to have its origin in the existence of Gribov copies. One-loop calculations at zero temperature have been shown to agree remarkably well with the corresponding lattice data. We extend on this and perform a one-loop calculation of the Matsubara gluon and ghost two-point correlators at finite temperature. We show that, as in the vacuum, an effective gluon mass accurately captures the dominant infrared physics for the magnetic gluon and ghost propagators. It also reproduces the gross qualitative features of the electric gluon propagator. In particular, we find a slight nonmonotonous behavior of the Debye mass as a function of temperature, however not as pronounced as in existing lattice results. A more quantitative description of the electric sector near the deconfinement phase transition certainly requires another physical ingredient sensitive to the order parameter of the transition., Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures ; Published version (PRD)

We propose a one-parameter family of nonlinear covariant gauges which can be formulated as an extremization procedure that may be amenable to lattice implementation. At high energies, where the Gribov ambiguities can be ignored, this reduces to the Curci-Ferrari-Delbourgo-Jarvis gauges. We further propose a continuum formulation in terms of a local action which is free of Gribov ambiguities and avoids the Neuberger zero problem of the standard Faddeev-Popov construction. This involves an averaging over Gribov copies with a nonuniform weight, which introduces a new gauge-fixing parameter. We show that the proposed gauge-fixed action is perturbatively renormalizable in four dimensions and we provide explicit expressions of the renormalization factors at one loop. We discuss the possible implications of the present proposal for the calculation of Yang-Mills correlators., Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures; published version

We compute the renormalization group flow of O(N) scalar field theories in de Sitter space using nonperturbative renormalization group techniques in the local potential approximation. We obtain the flow of the effective potential on superhorizon scales for arbitrary space-time dimension D=d+1. We show that, due to strong infrared fluctuations, the latter is qualitatively similar to the corresponding one in Euclidean space with D=0. It follows that spontaneously broken symmetries are radiatively restored in any space-time dimension and for any value of N., Comment: 5 pages; 1 figure, minor corrections (published version)

We study the two-point correlator of an O(N) scalar field with quartic self-coupling in de Sitter space. For light fields in units of the expansion rate, perturbation theory is plagued by large logarithmic terms for superhorizon momenta. We show that a proper treatment of the infinite series of self-energy insertions through the Schwinger-Dyson equations resums these infrared logarithms into well defined power laws. We provide an exact analytical solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equations for infrared momenta when the self-energy is computed at two-loop order. The obtained correlator exhibits a rich structure with a superposition of free-field-like power laws. We extract mass and field-strength renormalization factors from the asymptotic infrared behavior. The latter are nonperturbative in the coupling in the case of a vanishing tree-level mass., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, published version, some material has been added, title changed

We compute the four-point correlation function of a light O(N) scalar field in de Sitter space in the large-N limit. For superhorizon momentum modes, infrared effects strongly enhance the size of loop contributions. We find that in the deep infrared limit, the latter are of the same order as the tree-level one. The tree-level momentum structure, characteristic of a contact term, gets renormalized by a factor of order unity. In addition loop contributions give rise to a new momentum structure, characteristic of an exchange diagram, corresponding to the exchange of an effective composite scalar degree of freedom., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Material added. To appear in Phys. Lett. B

We study the O(N) scalar field theory with quartic self-coupling in de Sitter space. When the field is light in units of the expansion rate, perturbative methods break down at very low momenta due to large infrared logarithmic terms. Using the nonperturbative large-N limit, we compute the four-point vertex function in the deep infrared regime. The resummation of an infinite series of perturbative (bubble) diagrams leads to a modified power law which is analogous to the generation of an anomalous dimension in critical phenomena. We discuss in detail the role of high momentum (subhorizon) modes, including the issue of renormalization, and show that they influence the dynamics of infrared (superhorizon) modes only through a constant renormalization factor. This provides an explicit example of effective decoupling between high and low energy physics in an expanding space-time., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures; References added, typos corrected, published version (PRD)

We report on the work presented in Phys. Lett. B712 (2012) 97, where a new one-parameter family of Landau gauges has been proposed for Yang-Mills theories, inspired by an analogy with disordered systems in condensed matter physics. This is based on a particular average over Gribov copies which avoids the Neuberger zero problem of the standard Fadeev-Popov construction. The proposed gauge fixing can be formulated as a local renormalizable field theory in four dimensions and is well-suited for analytical calculations. A remarkable feature is that, for what concerns the calculation of ghost and gauge field correlators, the gauged-fixed action is perturbatively equivalent to a simple massive extension of the Faddeev-Popov action. The renormalization group flow of the theory admits infrared safe trajectories, with no Landau pole. The one-loop calculations of Yang-Mills two-point correlators show remarkable agreement with lattice simulations all the way to the deep infrared., Comment: Contribution to the Xth conference on Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, October 8-12, 2012, TUM Campus Garching, Munich, Germany; 8 pages, 2 figures

We propose a new approach to compute correlators of quantum fields in de Sitter space. It is based on nonequilibrium field theory techniques, and exploits de Sitter symmetries so as to partially reduce the number of independent variables of n-point functions in a manner that preserves the usefulness of a momentum representation, e.g., for writing spatial convolution integrals as simple products. In this representation, the two-point function of a scalar field only depends on two physical momenta, and the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson evolution equations take the form of momentum flow equations. Moreover, standard diagrammatic rules can be entirely formulated in this representation. The method is suitable for analytical approximations as well as numerical implementations. In forthcoming publications, we apply it to resum infrared logarithmic terms appearing in the perturbative calculation of vertex and correlation functions., Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures; Published version (references added, typos corrected)

We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics of a real quantum scalar field. We show the formal equivalence of the exact evolution equations for the statistical and spectral two-point functions with a fictitious Langevin process and examine the conditions under which a local Markovian dynamics is a valid approximation. In quantum field theory, the memory kernel and the noise correlator typically exhibit long time power laws and are thus highly non-local, thereby questioning the possibility of a local description. We show that despite this fact, there is a finite time range during which a local description is accurate. This requires the theory to be (effectively) weakly coupled. We illustrate the use of such a local description for studies of decoherence and entropy production in quantum field theory., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, references added, typos corrected. To appear in Phys. Rev. D

We propose a new one-parameter family of Landau gauges for Yang-Mills theories which can be formulated by means of functional integral methods and are thus well suited for analytic calculations, but which are free of Gribov ambiguities and avoid the Neuberger zero problem of the standard Faddeev-Popov construction. The resulting gauge-fixed theory is perturbatively renormalizable in four dimensions and, for what concerns the calculation of ghost and gauge field correlators, it reduces to a massive extension of the Faddeev-Popov action. We study the renormalization group flow of this theory at one-loop and show that it has no Landau pole in the infrared for some - including physically relevant - range of values of the renormalized parameters., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure; published version (PLB), minor corrections, references added

We study the quantum theory of an O(N) scalar field on de Sitter geometry at leading order in a nonperturbative 1/N-expansion. This resums the infinite series of so-called superdaisy loop diagrams. We obtain the de Sitter symmetric solutions of the corresponding, properly renormalized, dynamical field equations and compute the complete effective potential. Because of its self-interactions, the field acquires a strictly positive square mass which screens potential infrared divergences. Moreover, strongly enhanced ultralong-wavelength fluctuations prevent the existence of a spontaneously broken symmetry state in any dimension., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Minor changes, to appear in PRL

We study the properties of a non-Gaussian density matrix for a O(N) scalar field in the context of the incomplete description picture. This is of relevance for studies of decoherence and entropy production in quantum field theory. In particular, we study how the inclusion of the simplest non-Gaussian correlator in the set of measured observables modifies the effective (Gaussian) description one can infer from the knowledge of the two-point functions only. We compute exactly the matrix elements of the non-Gaussian density matrix at leading order in a 1/N-expansion. This allows us to study the quantum properties (purity, entropy, coherence) of the corresponding state for arbitrarily strong nongaussianity. We find that if the Gaussian and the non-Gaussian observers essentially agree concerning quantum purity or correlation entropy, their conclusion can significantly differ for other, more detailed aspects such as the degree of quantum coherence of the system., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Published version (Phys. Rev. D, minor corrections)

We study the real-time evolution of a self-interacting O(N) scalar field initially prepared in a pure quantum state. We present a complete solution of the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics from a 1/N-expansion of the two-particle-irreducible effective action at next-to-leading order, which includes scattering and memory effects. Restricting one's attention (or ability to measure) to a subset of the infinite hierarchy of correlation functions, the system is described by an effective (reduced) density matrix which, unlike the full density matrix, has a nontrivial time evolution. In particular, starting from a pure quantum state, we observe the loss of putity/coherence and, on longer time scales, thermalization of the reduced density matrix. We point out that the physics of decoherence is well described by classical statistical field theory., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett

We discuss the formulation of the prototype gauge field theory, QED, in the context of two-particle-irreducible (2PI) functional techniques with particular emphasis on the issues of renormalization and gauge symmetry. We show how to renormalize all $n$-point vertex functions of the (gauge-fixed) theory at any approximation order in the 2PI loop-expansion by properly adjusting a finite set of local counterterms consistent with the underlying gauge symmetry. The paper is divided in three parts: a self-contained presentation of the main results and their possible implementation for practical applications; a detailed analysis of ultraviolet divergences and their removal; a number of appendices collecting technical details., Comment: 65 pages, 18 figures

In the context of glass fiber manufacturing the onset of lubrication by a C18 double-chained cationic surfactant has been investigated at high normal contact pressures. Comparison with adsorption kinetics demonstrates that lubrication is not directly connected to the surfactant surface excess but originates from the transition to a defect-free bilayer which generates limited dissipation. The impact of ionic strength and shear rate has also been studied.

We summarize our recent work [1-3] concerning the formulation of two-particle-irreducible (2PI) functional techniques for abelian gauge field theories., Comment: To appear in the proceedings of SEWM08, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 26-29 August 2008

We study the issue of symmetries and associated Ward-like identities in the context of two-particle-irreducible (2PI) functional techniques for abelian gauge theories. In the 2PI framework, the $n$-point proper vertices of the theory can be obtained in various different ways which, although equivalent in the exact theory, differ in general at finite approximation order. We derive generalized (2PI) Ward identities for these various $n$-point functions and show that such identities are exactly satisfied at any approximation order in 2PI QED. In particular, we show that 2PI-resummed vertex functions, i.e. field-derivatives of the so-called 2PI-resummed effective action, exactly satisfy standard Ward identities. We identify another set of $n$-point functions in the 2PI framework which exactly satisfy the standard Ward identities at any approximation order. These are obtained as field-derivatives of the two-point function $\bcG^{-1}[\phi]$, which defines the extremum of the 2PI effective action. We point out that the latter is not constrained by the underlying symmetry. As a consequence, the well-known fact that the corresponding gauge-field polarization tensor is not transverse in momentum space for generic approximations does not constitute a violation of (2PI) Ward identities. More generally, our analysis demonstrates that approximation schemes based on 2PI functional techniques respect all the Ward identities associated with the underlying abelian gauge symmetry. Our results apply to arbitrary linearly realized global symmetries as well., Comment: 33 pages, 2 figures

We discuss the application of two-particle-irreducible (2PI) functional techniques to gauge theories, focusing on the issue of non-perturbative renormalization. In particular, we show how to renormalize the photon and fermion propagators of QED obtained from a systematic loop expansion of the 2PI effective action. At any finite order, this implies introducing new counterterms as compared to the usual ones in perturbation theory. We show that these new counterterms are consistent with the 2PI Ward identities and are systematically of higher order than the approximation order, which guarantees the convergence of the approximation scheme. Our analysis can be applied to any theory with linearly realized gauge symmetry. This is for instance the case of QCD quantized in the background field gauge., Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures. Uses JHEP3.cls

Glass is highly sensitive to surface flaws generated by contact. Surface cracks threaten both its mechanical strength and visual aspect. Recent trends in glass functionalisation by grafting or coating lend an even more prominent role to the surface. For these reasons, the glass surface mechanics, which couples surface physico-chemistry with mechanical response, must be considered in details to optimize glass processing and products. We review a few recent advances in the field of glass surface mechanics, with special emphasis on the local ductility of silicate glasses and the mechanical stability of films and coatings.