Fractional instanton of the SU(3) gauge theory in weak coupling regime

• Main Author: Etsuko Itou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2019-05-01
• Series: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Subjects: Lattice Quantum Field Theory; Nonperturbative Effects; Solitons Monopoles and Instantons; Topological States of Matter
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP05(2019)093

Abstract Motivated by recent studies on the resurgence structure of quantum field theories, we numerically study the nonperturbative phenomena of the SU(3) gauge theory in a weak coupling regime. We find that topological objects with a fractional charge emerge if the theory is regularized by an infrared (IR) cutoff via the twisted boundary conditions. Some configurations with nonzero instanton number are generated as a semi-classical configuration in the Monte Carlo simulation even in the weak coupling regime. Furthermore, some of them consist of multiple fractional-instantons. We also measure the Polyakov loop to investigate the center symmetry and confinement. The fractional-instanton corresponds to a solution linking two of degenerate ℤ3-broken vacua in the deconfinement phase.