Related papers: Instantons and the QCD Vacuum Wavefunctional
A gauge-invariant saddle point expansion for the Yang-Mills vacuum transition amplitude on the basis of the squeezed approximation to the vacuum wave functional is outlined. This framework allows the identification of gauge-invariant…
Instantons and their quantisation in pure Yang-Mills theory formulated in the background of de Sitter spacetime represented by spatially-closed ($k = 1$) Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric are discussed. As for the classical treatment of the…
Instantons play a crucial role in understanding non-perturbative dynamics in quantum field theories, including those with spontaneously broken gauge symmetries. In the broken phase, finite-size instanton-like configurations are no longer…
We study gauge-invariant approximations to the Yang-Mills vacuum wave functional in which asymptotic freedom and a detailed description of the infrared dynamics are encoded through squeezed core states. After variationally optimizing these…
We examine the contribution of small instantons to the axion mass in various UV completions of QCD. We show that the reason behind the potential dominance of such contributions is the non-trivial embedding of QCD into the UV theory. The…
The arcane ADHM construction of Yang-Mills instantons can be very naturally understood in the framework of D-brane dynamics in string theory. In this point-of-view, the mysterious auxiliary symmetry of the ADHM construction arises as a…
The results obtained by Seiberg and Witten for the low-energy Wilsonian effective actions of N=2 supersymmetric theories with gauge group SU(2) are in agreement with instanton computations carried out for winding numbers one and two. This…
Small instantons can play an important role in Yang-Mills theories whose gauge couplings are sizeable at small distances. An interesting class of theories where this could occur is in weakly-gauged holographic models (dual to Yang-Mills…
This talk is a review of our studies of instantons and their properties as seen in our lattice simulations of SU(2) gauge theory. We have measured the topological susceptibility and the size distribution of instantons in the QCD vacuum. We…
We investigate the instanton dynamics of asymptotically safe and free quantum field theories featuring respectively controllable ultraviolet and infrared fixed points. We start by briefly reviewing the salient points about the instanton…
N=1^* gauge theories are believed to have fractional instanton contributions in the confining vacua. D3 brane probe computations in gravitation dual of large-N N=2^* gauge theories point to the absence of such contributions in the low…
We describe the modern formalism, ideas and applications of the instanton calculus for gauge theories with, and without, supersymmetry. Particular emphasis is put on developing a formalism that can deal with any number of instantons. This…
We study N=2 supersymmetric Abelian gauge model with the Fayet-Iliopoulos term and an arbitrary number of chiral matter multiplets in two dimensions. By analyzing the instanton contribution we compute the non-perturbative corrections to the…
An instanton $(E, D)$ on a (pseudo-)hyperk\"ahler manifold $M$ is a vector bundle $E$ associated to a principal $G$-bundle with a connection $D$ whose curvature is pointwise invariant under the quaternionic structures of $T_x M, \ x\in M$,…
A precise characterization of structures occurring in turbulent fluid flows at high Reynolds numbers is one of the last open problems of classical physics. In this review we discuss recent developments related to the application of…
The detailed analysis of nonperturbative contributions to the electromagnetic quark form factor is performed within the framework of the instanton liquid model (ILM) of the QCD vacuum. The method of the path-ordered Wilson exponentials is…
We study a gauge-invariant variational framework for the Yang-Mills vacuum wave functional. Our approach is built on gauge-averaged Gaussian trial functionals which substantially extend previously used trial bases in the infrared by…
An analysis is performed of instanton configurations in pure Euclidean Yang-Mills theory containing small Lorentz-violating perturbations that maintain gauge invariance. Conventional topological arguments are used to show that the general…
This is a self-contained set of lecture notes on instantons in (super) Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions and in quantum mechanics. First the basics are derived from scratch: the regular and singular one-instanton solutions for Yang-Mills…
Instantons, localised saddle points of the action, play an important role in describing non-perturbative aspects of quantum field theories, for example vacuum decay or violation of conservation laws associated with anomalous symmetries.…