Related papers: A variational approach to the QCD wave functional:…
A very simple variational approach to pure SU($N$) Yang-Mills theory is proposed, based on the Gaussian effective potential in a linear covariant gauge. The method provides an analytical variational argument for mass generation. The method…
We review attempts to apply the variational principle to understand the vacuum of non-abelian gauge theories. In particular, we focus on the method explored by Ian Kogan and collaborators, which imposes exact gauge invariance on the trial…
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…
A simple variational argument based on the Gaussian Effective Potential (GEP) is put forward to give evidence for mass generation and deconfinement in pure Yang-Mills SU(N) theory. The GEP analysis shows that the massless gaussian vacuum of…
Using the effective potential approach for composite operators, we have formulated a general method of calculation of the truly non-perturbative Yang-Mills vacuum energy density (this is, by definition, the Bag constant apart from the…
We propose a new reformulation of Yang-Mills theory in which three- and four-gluon self-interactions are eliminated at the price of introducing a sufficient number of auxiliary fields. We discuss the validity of this reformulation in the…
Using the effective potential approach for composite operators we have formulated the quantum model of the QCD vacuum. It is based on the existence and importance of the nonperturbative $q^{-4}$-type dynamical, topologically nontrivial…
For a SU(N) Yang-Mills theory, we present variational calculations using gaussian wave functionals combined with an approximate projection on gauge invariant states. The projection amounts to correcting the energy of the gaussian states by…
A gauge-invariant wavefunctional is proposed as an approximation to the ground state of Yang-Mills theory in 2+1 dimensions, quantized in temporal gauge. The proposed vacuum state is the true ground state of the appropriate Hamiltonian in…
Ratios of the true Yang-Mills vacuum wavefunctional, evaluated on any two field configurations out of a finite set of configurations, can be obtained from lattice Monte Carlo simulations. The method was applied some years ago to test…
We introduce a class of variational states to study ground state properties and real-time dynamics in (2+1)-dimensional compact QED. These are based on complex Gaussian states which are made periodic in order to account for the compact…
The variational approach to QCD in Coulomb gauge developed previously by the T\"ubingen group is improved by enlarging the space of quark trial vacuum wave functionals through a new Dirac structure in the quark-gluon coupling. Our ansatz…
The feasibility of studying, numerically, properties of infinite volume QCD-like theories in the large $N$ limit using coherent state variational methods is reassessed. An entirely new implementation of this approach is described,…
We propose a new reformulation of Yang-Mills theory in which three- and four-gluon self-interactions are eliminated at the price of introducing a sufficient number of auxiliary fields. We discuss the validity of this reformulation in the…
The variational approach to Yang-Mills theory in Coulomb gauge is extended to full QCD. For the quark sector we use a trial wave functional, which goes beyond the previously used BCS-type state and which explicitly contains the coupling of…
We study the gauge-invariant gaussian ansatz for the vacuum wave functional and show that it potentially possesses many desirable features of the Yang--Mills theory, like asymptotic freedom, mass generation through the transmutation of…
The variational approach to QCD in Coulomb gauge is revisited. By assuming the non-Abelian Coulomb potential to be given by the sum of its infrared and ultraviolet parts, i.e.~by a linearly rising potential and an ordinary Coulomb…
Quantum electrodynamics in three spacetime dimensions, with one massless fermion species, is studied using a non-perturbative variational approach. Quantization of the theory follows Dirac's Hamiltonian procedure, with a gauge invariant…
The thermodynamics of $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills theory in the covariant variational approach is studied by relating the free action density in the background of a non-trivial Polyakov loop to the pressure of the gluon plasma. The correct…
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…