The Higgs phase as a spin glass, and the transition between varieties of confinement

Abstract

We propose that the Higgs phase of a gauge Higgs theory is the phase of spontaneously broken custodial symmetry, and present a new gauge invariant order parameter for custodial symmetry breaking which is very closely analogous to the Edwards-Anderson order parameter for spin glasses. Custodial symmetry is a global symmetry acting on the Higgs field alone, and we show here that the spin glass transition in gauge Higgs theories, from a QCD-like phase to a Higgs phase of broken custodial symmetry, coincides with the transition between two distinct types of confinement. These are color confinement in the Higgs phase, and a stronger version of confinement, which we have termed "separation-of-charge" confinement, in the QCD-like phase.

17 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (3)

• On the Ambiguity of Spontaneously Broken Gauge Symmetry
• BRST-Symmetry Breaking and Bose-Ghost Propagator in Lattice Minimal Landau Gauge
• A confinement criterion for gauge theories with matter fields

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Higgs-confinement phase transitions with fundamental representation matter
• Different faces of confinement
• Excitations of elementary fermions in gauge Higgs theories
• Centre vortex structure in the presence of dynamical fermions
• Higgs-confinement continuity and matching of Aharonov-Bohm phases
• Numerical indication that center vortices drive dynamical mass generation in QCD
• Excited states of massive fermions in a chiral gauge theory
• Confinement-Higgs and deconfinement-Higgs transitions in three-dimensional $Z(2)$ LGT
• The Higgs phase as a spin glass phase in D=5 dimensional SU(2) gauge Higgs theory
• Gauge-independent transition separating confinement and Higgs phases in lattice SU(2) gauge theory with a scalar field in the fundamental representation
• Quantum excitations of static charges in the Ginzburg-Landau model of superconductivity