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Cherman, Aleksey

Publications and source records attributed to Cherman, Aleksey.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Line operators, vortex statistics, and Higgs versus confinement dynamics

We study a 2+1D lattice gauge theory with fundamental representation scalar fields which has both Higgs and confining regimes with a spontaneously-broken U(1) 0-form symmetry. We show that the Higgs and confining regimes may be distinguished by a natural gauge invariant observable: the phase Ω of a correlation function of a vortex line operator linking with an electric Wilson line. We employ dualities and strong coupling expansions to analytically explore parameter regimes which were inaccessible in previous continuum calculations, and discuss possible implications for the phase diagram.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Four-fermion deformations of the massless Schwinger model and confinement

We consider the massless charge-N Schwinger model and its deformation with two four-fermion operators. Without the deformations, this model exhibits chiral symmetry breaking without confinement. It is usually asserted that the massless Schwinger model is always deconfined and a string tension emerges only when a mass for the fermion field is turned on. We show that in the presence of these four-fermion operators, the massless theory can in fact confine. One of the four-fermion deformations is chirally neutral, and is a marginal deformation. The other operator can be relevant or irrelevant, and respects a Z 2 subgroup of chiral symmetry for even N, hence forbidding a mass term. When it is relevant, even the exactly massless theory exhibits both confinement and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. The construction is analogous to QCD(adj) in 2d. While the theory without four-fermion deformations is deconfined, the theory with these deformations is generically in a confining phase. We study the model on R 2 using bosonization, and also analyze the mechanism of confinement on R × S 1 , where we find that confinement is driven by fractional instantons.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Vortices in spin-0 superfluids carry magnetic flux

Vortices in spin-0 superfluids generically carry magnetic fields inside their cores, so that even neutral superfluid vortices may be thought of as magnetic flux tubes. We give a systematic analysis of this ‘vortex magnetic effect’ using effective field theory, clarifying earlier literature on the subject. Furthermore, our analysis shows that in superfluid helium-4 the vortex magnetic effect may be large enough to be experimentally detectable.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

Anomalies, a mod 2 index, and dynamics of 2d adjoint QCD

We show that 2 2 d adjoint QCD, an SU(N) S U ( N ) gauge theory with one massless adjoint Majorana fermion, has a variety of mixed ’t Hooft anomalies. The anomalies are derived using a recent mod 2 2 index theorem and its generalization that incorporates ’t Hooft flux. Anomaly matching and dynamical considerations are used to determine the ground-state structure of the theory. The anomalies, which are present for most values of N N , are matched by spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. We find that massless 2 2 d adjoint QCD confines for N >2 N > 2 , except for test charges of N N -ality N/2 N / 2 , which are deconfined. In other words, \mathbb Z_N ℤ N center symmetry is unbroken for odd N N and spontaneously broken to \mathbb Z_{N/2} ℤ N / 2 for even N N . All of these results are confirmed by explicit calculations on small \mathbb{R}\times S^1 ℝ × S 1 . We also show that this non-supersymmetric theory exhibits exact Bose-Fermi degeneracies for all states, including the vacua, when N N is even. Furthermore, for most values of N N , 2 2 d massive adjoint QCD describes a non-trivial symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase of matter, including certain cases where the number of interacting Majorana fermions is a multiple of 8 8 . As a result, it fits into the classification of (1+1) ( 1 + 1 ) d SPT phases of interacting Majorana fermions in an interesting way.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Bose-Fermi cancellations without supersymmetry

We show that adjoint QCD features very strong Bose-Fermi cancellations in the large- N limit, despite the fact that it is manifestly nonsupersymmetric. The difference between the bosonic and fermionic densities of states in large- N adjoint QCD turns out to have a “two-dimensional” scaling ~ exp ( ℓ E ) for large energies E in finite spatial volume, where ℓ is a length scale associated with the curvature of the spatial manifold. In particular, all Hagedorn growth cancels, and so does the growth exp ( V 1 / 4 E 3 / 4 ) expected in a standard local four-dimensional theory in spatial volume V . In these ways, large- N adjoint QCD, a manifestly nonsupersymmetric theory, acts similarly to supersymmetric theories. We also show that at large- N the vacuum energy of multiflavor adjoint QCD is non-negative and exponentially small compared to the UV cutoff with several natural regulators.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Vacuum structure of Yang-Mills theory as a function of θ

It is believed that in SU(N) Yang-Mills theory observables are N -branched functions of the topological θ angle. This is supposed to be due to the existence of a set of locally-stable candidate vacua, which compete for global stability as a function of θ. We study the number of θ vacua, their interpretation, and their stability properties using systematic semiclassical analysis in the context of adiabatic circle compactification on $ \mathbb{R}$ 3 × S 1 . We find that while observables are indeed N-branched functions of θ, there are only ≈ N/2 locally-stable candidate vacua for any given θ. We point out that the different θ vacua are distinguished by the expectation values of certain magnetic line operators that carry non-zero GNO charge but zero ’t Hooft charge. Finally, we show that in the regime of validity of our analysis YM theory has spinodal points as a function of θ, and gather evidence for the conjecture that these spinodal points are present even in the $ \mathbb{R}$ 4 limit.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Order Parameters and Color-Flavor Center Symmetry in QCD

Common lore implies that N -color QCD with massive quarks has no useful order parameters that can be nontrivial at zero baryon density. However, such order parameters do exist when there are n f quark flavors with a common mass and d ≡ g c d ( n f , N ) > 1 . These theories have a Z d color-flavor center symmetry arising from intertwined color center transformations and cyclic flavor permutations. Furthermore, the symmetry realization depends on the temperature, baryon chemical potential, and value of n f / N , with implications for conformal window studies and dense quark matter.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

QCD on a small circle

QCD-like theories can be engineered to remain in a confined phase when compactified on an arbitrarily small circle, where their features may be studied quantitatively in a controlled fashion. Prior work has elucidated the generation of a non-perturbative mass gap and the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in this regime. In this work, we study the rich spectrum of hadronic states, including glueball, meson, and baryon resonances. We find an exponentially growing Hagedorn density of states, as well as the emergence of non-perturbative energy scales given by iterated exponentials of the inverse Yang-Mills coupling g 2 .

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Exponential reduction of finite volume effects with twisted boundary conditions

Here, flavor-twisted boundary conditions can be used for exponential reduction of finite volume artifacts in flavor-averaged observables in lattice QCD calculations with S U ( N f ) light quark flavor symmetry. Finite volume artifact reduction arises from destructive interference effects in a manner closely related to the phase averaging which leads to large N c volume independence. With a specific choice of flavor-twisted boundary conditions, finite volume artifacts for flavor-singlet observables in a hypercubic spacetime volume are reduced to the size of finite volume artifacts in a spacetime volume with periodic boundary conditions that is four times larger.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Spectral sum rules for confining large-N theories

We consider asymptotically-free four-dimensional large-$N$ gauge theories with massive fermionic and bosonic adjoint matter fields, compactified on squashed three-spheres, and examine their regularized large-$N$ confined-phase spectral sums. The analysis is done in the limit of vanishing ’t Hooft coupling, which is justified by taking the size of the compactification manifold to be small compared to the inverse strong scale Λ ₋1 . We find our results motivate us to conjecture some universal spectral sum rules for these large $N$ gauge theories.

1/N Expansion↗
DOE OSTI2015

Bose-Fermi degeneracies in large N adjoint QCD

Here, we analyze the large N limit of adjoint QCD, an SU( N ) gauge theory with N f flavors of massless adjoint Majorana fermions, compactified on S 3 × S 1 . We focus on the weakly-coupled confining small- S 3 regime. If the fermions are given periodic boundary conditions on S 1 , we show that there are large cancellations between bosonic and fermionic contributions to the twisted partition function. These cancellations follow a pattern previously seen in the context of misaligned supersymmetry, and lead to the absence of Hagedorn instabilities for any S 1 size L , even though the bosonic and fermionic densities of states both have Hagedorn growth. Adjoint QCD stays in the confining phase for any L ~ N 0 , explaining how it is able to enjoy large N volume independence for any L . The large N boson-fermion cancellations take place in a setting where adjoint QCD is manifestly non-supersymmetric at any finite N , and are consistent with the recent conjecture that adjoint QCD has emergent fermionic symmetries in the large N limit.

1/N Expansion↗