Confinement, String Breaking, and Hadronization in the Compact Abelian Higgs Model

Abstract

While real-time simulation of Quantum Chromodynamics remains technologically out of reach, many simplified models for studying elements of QCD phenomenology are being investigated. In this work, we present a simple model, a spin-1 truncation of the Compact Abelian Higgs Model simulated on qutrit sites, in which confinement and string breaking are accessible to current simulation methods. In the low-energy regime of 1+1 dimensional scalar electrodynamics, the heavy modes are integrated out, producing a spin chain effective Hamiltonian in which Gauss' law is automatically satisfied. We study the spectrum of string-like excitations using DMRG methods on the order of 100 sites. We demonstrate that an added, local chemical potential, playing a role analogous to external charges, permits parameter-dependent measurements of physical features of interest like the string tension and effective meson mass. Varying the chemical potential also permits a characterization of string stability not assessed in prior studies of confining lattice models.

8 pages, 9 figures