• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.69.074506
• Corpus ID: 119479203

Coulomb energy, remnant symmetry, and the phases of non-Abelian gauge theories

@article{Greensite2004CoulombER,
  title={Coulomb energy, remnant symmetry, and the phases of non-Abelian gauge theories},
  author={Jeff Greensite and {\vS}tefan Olejnı́k and Daniel. Zwanziger},
  journal={Physical Review D},
  year={2004},
  volume={69},
  pages={074506}
}

• J. Greensite, Š. Olejnı́k, D. Zwanziger
• Published 1 January 2004
• Physics
• Physical Review D

We show that the confining property of the one-gluon propagator, in the Coulomb gauge, is linked to the unbroken realization of a remnant gauge symmetry which exists in this gauge. An order parameter for the remnant gauge symmetry is introduced, and its behavior is investigated in a variety of models via numerical simulations. We find that the color-Coulomb potential, associated with the gluon propagator, grows linearly with distance both in the confined and\char22{}surprisingly\char22{}in the high-temperature deconfined phase of pure Yang-Mills theory. We also find a remnant symmetry-breaking transition in SU(2) gauge-Higgs theory which completely isolates the Higgs region from the (pseudo)confinement region of the phase diagram. This transition exists despite the absence, pointed out long ago by Fradkin and Shenker, of a genuine thermodynamic phase transition separating the two regions.