Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson approach to critical phenomena in the presence of gauge symmetries

Abstract

We critically reconsider the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson (LGW) approach to critical phenomena in the presence of gauge symmetries. In the LGW framework, to obtain the universal features of a continuous transition, one identifies the order parameter Phi and considers the corresponding most general Phi4 field theory that has the same symmetries as the original model. In the presence of gauge symmetries, one usually considers a gauge-invariant order parameter and a LGW field theory that is invariant under the global symmetries of the original model. We show that this approach, in which the gauge dynamics is effectively integrated out, may sometimes lead to erroneous conclusions on the nature of the critical behavior. As an explicit example, we show that the above-described LGW approach generally fails for the three-dimensional ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic CP(N-1) models, which are invariant under global U(N) and local U(1) transformations. We point out possible implications for the finite-temperature chiral transition of nuclear matter.

7 pages, few changes, refs added

References in corpus (4)

• The chiral phase transition in two-flavor QCD from imaginary chemical potential
• Evidence for O(2) universality at the finite temperature transition for lattice QCD with 2 flavours of massless staggered quarks
• Three-dimensional antiferromagnetic CP(N-1) models
• Symmetry-allowed phase transitions realized by the two-dimensional fully frustrated XY class

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Phase Transitions in Particle Physics -- Results and Perspectives from Lattice Quantum Chromo-Dynamics
• The Chiral Phase Transition in three-flavor QCD from Lattice QCD
• Lattice Abelian-Higgs model with noncompact gauge fields
• Three-dimensional lattice multiflavor scalar chromodynamics: interplay between global and gauge symmetries
• Critical behaviors of lattice U(1) gauge models and three-dimensional Abelian-Higgs gauge field theory
• Criticality of O(N) symmetric models in the presence of discrete gauge symmetries
• Bootstrapping traceless symmetric $O(N)$ scalars
• Exploring $SU(N)$ adjoint correlators in $3d$
• Three-dimensional Abelian and non-Abelian gauge Higgs theories