text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recent topics of the theories in higher dimensions give us a lot of interesting phenomenological pictures. We consider that the extra dimensions are compactified in an orbifold. In an orbifold space, we can impose transformation properties to the fields and the symmetries can be broken . The gauge symmetry can be also broken down through the orbifold compactification. Ref. utilizes this orbifold breaking to consider the $`SU(5)`$ grand unified theories, and solves the doublet-triplet splitting problem by projecting out the colored Higgs triplets using the orbifold transformation properties. The orbifold grand unified theories are widely applied to build models in higher dimensions .

The orbifold grand unified theories can give us an interesting situation: The bulk lagrangian has a larger symmetry, while on the 4 dimensional wall (3-brane) the symmetry is broken. Such situation provides us a possibility that parameters in the 4D models are related. For a simple example, suppose that the bulk symmetry is $`SO(10)`$ and the bulk symmetry is broken down to Pati-Salam  symmetry, $`SU(4)\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R`$ in 4D. There is no reason that the three gauge couplings of Pati-Salam symmetry are related if we only consider the 4D lagrangian. However, the three gauge couplings can be unified due to the larger bulk symmetry if we can neglect the brane-localized gauge kinetic terms by using large volume suppression. Left-right parity can also originate from large bulk symmetry. Actually, the Pati-Salam orbifold model is a good example to consider the orbifold grand unified theories: Charge quantization is realized naturally, and the electroweak Higgs and colored Higgs are already split.

Abother attractive motivation to extend the dimensions is that the variety of particles in Nature can be understood by means of a geometrical language. For example, in the original idea by Kaluza-Klein, the 4 dimensional gauge fields are included in the higher dimensional metric tensor. The gauge-Higgs unification  is one of such attractive ideas in the higher dimensional theories. Recent progress of the higher dimensional unified theories makes many people revisit the idea of the gauge-Higgs unification . The gauge fields with the extra dimensional components behave as scalar fields in 4 dimension and the scalar fields originated from the gauge bosons can be Higgs fields which break gauge symmetry. The masses of such scalar fields are prohibited by gauge invariance, and in supersymmetric theories the scalar fields remain massless in the low energy thanks to the non-renormalizable theorem. Thus those scalar fields can be good candidates for the low energy Higgs fields which break electroweak symmetry.

In the higher dimensional supersymmetric theories, the gauge multiplet, which is the extended supersymmetric multiplet, contains both vector multiplet and chiral supermultiplets in 4D $`N=1`$ language. Assigning the different transformation property between vector multiplet and chiral supermultiplets, we can make vector multiplet massless but chiral supermultiplets heavy in 4D, which means the extended supersymmetry can be broken down to $`N=1`$ supersymmetry. If we also break gauge symmetry through orbifold compactification simultaneously, the chiral supermultiplets which correspond to the broken generator can have a zero mode, which remains massless in the low energy. Then, we can identify such supermultiplets with the low energy fields. This is the main idea which we consider in this paper.

The Ref. emphasizes an interesting possibility that the gauge and Yukawa coupling constants have the same origin, if matters (quarks and leptons) are also bulk fields in the context of gauge-Higgs unification. The Yukawa interactions arise from the gauge interaction in the higher dimensional lagrangian, thus, the gauge and Yukawa coupling constants can be unified in the higher dimensional theory. This is also realized due to the large bulk symmetry which we mentioned before. This fact can be a strong motivation to consider the orbifold grand unified theories. In the Ref., the authors considered the 5D theory of $`SU(3)_w`$ and $`SU(6)`$ as an example of this scenario. The gauge-Higgs unification in 5D theory with larger gauge group such as $`E_6`$, $`E_7`$ and $`E_8`$ has also been studied . In Ref., the authors consider the gauge-Higgs unification in the $`SU(4)_w`$ and $`SO(12)`$, and suggest that the left-right symmetric breaking of the gauge symmetry gives an economical realization of the representations of the quarks and leptons.

Another interesting possibility of unified model in higher dimensions is that quarks and leptons can be unified in the gauge multiplet. It is well-known that three (or four) families of quarks and leptons can be contained in the adjoint representations in large gauge groups, such as $`E_7`$ and $`E_8`$. The matters in the adjoint representation are always vector-like, but one can project out the vector-like partner by $`Z_3`$ transformation properties . This encourages us to consider the interesting possibility that the gauge and matters are unified in higher dimensional models. In other context, we can consider the origin of the three families as chiral superfields in gauge multiplet  since the gauge multiplet in the 6D $`N=2`$ supersymmetry contains three $`N=1`$ chiral superfields in 4D.

In Ref., we suggested the possibility of unifying gauge, matter and Higgs fields in one supersymmetric gauge multiplet in higher dimensions, as well as the unification of the gauge and Yukawa couplings. As a simple example, a 6D $`N=2`$ supersymmetric $`SU(8)`$ unified model is constructed. The gauge symmetry $`SU(8)`$ is broken down to Pati-Salam symmetry with two extra $`U(1)`$’s in 4D through $`T^2/Z_6`$ orbifold compactification, and the theory is reduced to 4D $`N=1`$ supersymmetric Pati-Salam model. The electroweak Higgs fields and standard model fermions for the 3rd family was unified with the gauge bosons in the 6D gauge multiplets. The 6D bulk gauge interaction produces Yukawa interactions, which give masses to the quarks and leptons by Higgs mechanism, and gives gauge-Yukawa unification. The numerical agreement of this gauge-Yukawa unification prediction for all the gauge and the third family Yukawa couplings is good .

In this paper, we suggest the extension of our $`SU(8)`$ unified model to incorporate two families in the bulk. We will construct a 6D $`N=2`$ supersymmetric $`SO(16)`$ unified model. In this model, the gauge symmetry $`SO(16)`$ is broken down to Pati-Salam symmetry with three extra $`U(1)`$’s in 4D through $`T^2/Z_6`$ orbifold compactification. The gauge bosons, Higgs fields and two families of quarks and leptons are unified in the 6D $`N=2`$ gauge multiplets. Another family is naturally introduced as brane fields to cancel the gauge anomaly. Thus, this gives the three-family model. The flavor symmetry can be easily broken down, while the gauge and Yukawa couplings for 3rd family are unified in the same way as $`SU(8)`$ model.

Our paper is organized as follows: In section 2, we construct our supersymmetric $`SO(16)`$ model in 6D with gauge, Higgs and matter unification and show how orbifold compactification leads to Pati-Salam model in 4D. Implications of our model are given in section 3. Section 4 contains our conclusions and discussions.

## 2 The Model

We consider the 6D gauge theory with $`N=2`$ supersymmetry. The two extra dimensions are compactified on an orbifold $`T^2/Z_n`$ . The $`N=2`$ supersymmetry in 6D corresponds to $`N=4`$ supersymmetry in 4D, thus only the gauge multiplet can be introduced in the bulk. In terms of 4D $`N=1`$ language, the gauge multiplet contains vector multiplet $`V(A_\mu ,\lambda )`$ and three chiral multiplets $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ in the adjoint representation of the gauge group. The fifth and sixth components of the gauge fields, $`A_5`$ and $`A_6`$, are contained in the lowest component of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Sigma }|_{\theta =\overline{\theta }=0}=(A_6+iA_5)/\sqrt{2}`$.

The bulk action, written in the 4D $`N=1`$ language and in the Wess-Zumino gauge, is given by

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^6x\{\mathrm{Tr}[{\displaystyle }d^2\theta ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4kg^2}}W^\alpha W_\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{kg^2}}(\mathrm{\Phi }^c\mathrm{\Phi }\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }[\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Phi }^c]))+h.c.]`$ (1)
$`+{\displaystyle d^4\theta \frac{1}{kg^2}\mathrm{Tr}\left[(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}^{}+\mathrm{\Sigma }^{})e^{2V}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}+\mathrm{\Sigma })e^{2V}+\frac{1}{4}^{}e^{2V}e^{2V}\right]}`$
$`+{\displaystyle }d^4\theta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{kg^2}}\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Phi }^{}e^{2V}\mathrm{\Phi }e^{2V}+\mathrm{\Phi }^ce^{2V}\mathrm{\Phi }^ce^{2V}]\},`$
where $`k`$ is the normalization of the group generators, $`\mathrm{Tr}T^aT^b=k\delta ^{ab}`$ (we take $`k=1/2`$), $``$ is defined as $`=_5i_6`$, and $`W_\alpha `$ is defined as $`W_\alpha =\frac{1}{8}\overline{D}^2(e^{2V}D_\alpha e^{2V})`$. The 6D gauge transformations are

$`e^{2V}`$ $``$ $`e^\mathrm{\Lambda }e^{2V}e^\mathrm{\Lambda }^{},\mathrm{\Sigma }e^\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}})e^\mathrm{\Lambda },`$ (2)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $``$ $`e^\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Phi }e^\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Phi }^ce^\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Phi }^ce^\mathrm{\Lambda }.`$ (3)
The $`T^2/Z_n`$ orbifold is constructed by identifying the complex coordinate $`z`$ of the extra dimensions under $`Z_n:z\omega z`$, where $`\omega ^n=1`$. The number $`n`$ is restricted to be $`n=2,3,4,6`$. We can impose the transformation property of the gauge multiplet as

$`V(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`V(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z}),`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\omega }\mathrm{\Sigma }(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z}),`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`\omega ^l\mathrm{\Phi }(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z}),`$ (6)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }^c(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`\omega ^m\mathrm{\Phi }^c(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z}),`$ (7)
where $``$ acts on the gauge space satisfying $`^n`$ to be the identity mapping since $`V(x^\mu ,\omega ^nz,\overline{\omega }^n\overline{z})`$ should be equal to $`V(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z})`$. Non-trivial $``$ breaks the gauge symmetry. Because of the lagrangian invariance in Eq.(1) under the transformations (4-7), we have a relation $`l+m1`$ (mod $`n`$). In the case $`n>2`$, this transformation property breaks $`N=4`$ supersymmetry down to $`N=1`$ in 4D. We will concentrate on $`T^2/Z_6`$ orbifold in the following in the same way as in Ref..

We consider the $`SO(16)`$ gauge group. The adjoint of $`SO(16)`$ is represented by $`16\times 16`$ real anti-symmetric matrices. The gauge twisted mapping $``$ is represented as $`VRVR^T`$ where $`R`$ is a unitary matrix which satisfies that $`R^n=\pm I`$ ($`I`$ is the identity matrix). For example, if we take unitary matrix $`R`$

$$R=\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1)\mathrm{diag}(\omega ,\overline{\omega })\mathrm{diag}(\stackrel{8}{\stackrel{}{\omega ,\mathrm{},\omega }},\stackrel{8}{\stackrel{}{\overline{\omega },\mathrm{},\overline{\omega }}}),$$
(8)
$`SO(16)`$ is broken down to $`SU(8)\times U(1)`$. The adjoint $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟎}`$ is decomposed as $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟎}=\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}_0+\mathrm{𝟏}_0+\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}_1+\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}_1`$ under $`SU(8)\times U(1)`$. The $`U(1)`$ charges in some normalization are given by subscript. In the following, we denote this $`U(1)`$ symmetry by $`U(1)_3`$. The vector multiplet $`V`$ is decomposed as $`V_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟎}}=V_{\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}}+V_\mathrm{𝟏}+V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}+V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}`$, and similar for the chiral multiplets $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$. In the choice of matrix in Eq.(8), the $`Z_6`$ charges are assigned as 1 for $`V_{\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}}+V_\mathrm{𝟏}`$, $`\omega ^2`$ for $`V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}`$ and $`\overline{\omega }^2`$ for $`V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}`$. The $`Z_6`$ charge assignments for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ are obtained by multiplying $`\overline{\omega }`$, $`\omega ^l`$ and $`\omega ^m`$, respectively.

Now we take the matrix $`R`$ as

$$R=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\omega ^{\frac{a}{2}}R_8& 0\\ & \\ 0& \overline{\omega }^{\frac{a}{2}}R_8^{}\end{array}\right)$$
(9)
where $`R_8`$ is an $`8\times 8`$ unitary matrix which satisfies $`R_8^n=I`$. The $`Z_6`$ transformation property for the vector multiplet $`V`$ are easily obtained as

$`V_{\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}}(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`R_8V_{\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}}(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z})R_8^{},`$ (10)
$`V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`\omega ^aR_8V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z})R_8,`$ (11)
$`V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\omega }^aR_8^{}V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z})R_8^{},`$ (12)
$`V_\mathrm{𝟏}(x^\mu ,\omega z,\overline{\omega }\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`V_\mathrm{𝟏}(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z}).`$ (13)
The transformation property for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ can be obtained multiplying $`\overline{\omega }`$, $`\omega ^l`$ and $`\omega ^m`$, respectively. We choose the unitary matrix $`R_8`$ as

$$R_8=\mathrm{diag}(\omega ^b,\omega ^b,\omega ^b,\omega ^b,\omega ^c,\omega ^c,\omega ^d,\omega ^d).$$
(14)
Then, with this choice ($`a`$ is odd and $`b`$, $`c`$, $`d`$ are different numbers modulo $`6`$), $`SO(16)`$ breaks down to $`SU(4)\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R\times U(1)^3`$, and the 4D theory becomes $`N=1`$ supersymmetric Pati-Salam model with three extra $`U(1)`$ symmetries.

The $`SU(8)\times U(1)_3`$ representations $`\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}_0`$, $`\mathrm{𝟏}_0`$, $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}_1`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}_1`$ are decomposed under the $`SU(4)\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R`$ in the following matrix form:

$`\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}_0`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}(\mathrm{𝟏𝟓},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{0,0,0}& (\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,0,0}& (\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})_{1,2,0}\\ (\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,0,0}& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟑},\mathrm{𝟏})_{0,0,0}& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟐})_{0,2,0}\\ (\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})_{1,2,0}& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟐})_{0,2,0}& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟑})_{0,0,0}\end{array}\right)+(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{0,0,0}+(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{0,0,0},`$ (18)
$`\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}(\mathrm{𝟔},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,1,1}& (\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟏})_{0,1,1}& (\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})_{0,1,1}\\ & (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,1,1}& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟐})_{1,1,1}\\ (\text{anti-sym})& & (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,3,1}\end{array}\right),`$ (22)
$`\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}(\mathrm{𝟔},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,1,1}& (\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟏})_{0,1,1}& (\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})_{0,1,1}\\ & (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,1,1}& (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟐})_{1,1,1}\\ (\text{anti-sym})& & (\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,3,1}\end{array}\right),\mathrm{𝟏}_0=(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟏})_{0,0,0}.`$ (26)
where the subscripts denote the charges under the $`U(1)_1\times U(1)_2\times U(1)_3`$ symmetry. The $`U(1)_1`$ and $`U(1)_2`$ symmetries originate from the $`SU(8)`$ generators: $`\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1)/2`$ for $`U(1)_1`$ and $`\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1,1,1,1,3,3)/2`$ for $`U(1)_2`$. The $`Z_6`$ transformation property for these decomposed representations of the vector multiplet $`V`$ are easily calculated as

$`V_{\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}}`$ $`:`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& \omega ^{bc}& \omega ^{bd}\\ \omega ^{cb}& 1& \omega ^{cd}\\ \omega ^{db}& \omega ^{dc}& 1\end{array}\right)+(1)+(1),V_\mathrm{𝟏}:(1),`$ (30)
$`V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}`$ $`:`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\omega ^{a+2b}& \omega ^{a+b+c}& \omega ^{a+b+d}\\ & \omega ^{a+2c}& \omega ^{a+c+d}\\ & & \omega ^{a+2d}\end{array}\right),V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}:\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\overline{\omega }^{a+2b}& \overline{\omega }^{a+b+c}& \overline{\omega }^{a+b+d}\\ & \overline{\omega }^{a+2c}& \overline{\omega }^{a+c+d}\\ & & \overline{\omega }^{a+2d}\end{array}\right).`$ (37)
All the exponents of $`\omega `$ should be non-zero modulo 6. The $`Z_6`$ assignments for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ are obtained by multiplying $`\overline{\omega }`$, $`\omega ^l`$ and $`\omega ^m`$, respectively.

We choose the matrix $`R_8`$ as

$$R_8=\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1,1,\omega ^5,\omega ^5,\omega ^2,\omega ^2)$$
(38)
to pick up one chiral family from $`\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}`$. Then we find the $`Z_6`$ transformation property of the vector multiplet $`V`$ from Eqs.(30) and (37) as

$`V_{\mathrm{𝟔𝟑}}`$ $`:`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& \omega & \omega ^4\\ \omega ^5& 1& \omega ^3\\ \omega ^2& \omega ^3& 1\end{array}\right)+(1)+(1),V_\mathrm{𝟏}:(1),`$ (42)
$`V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}`$ $`:`$ $`\omega ^a\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& \omega ^5& \omega ^2\\ & \omega ^4& \omega \\ & & \omega ^4\end{array}\right),V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}:\overline{\omega }^a\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& \omega & \omega ^4\\ & \omega ^2& \omega ^5\\ & & \omega ^2\end{array}\right).`$ (49)
The number $`a`$ is chosen as $`a=3`$ to make all the $`V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}`$ and $`V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}`$ massive, and then

$$V_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}:\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\omega ^3& \omega ^2& \omega ^5\\ & \omega & \omega ^4\\ & & \omega \end{array}\right),V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟖}}}:\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\omega ^3& \omega ^4& \omega \\ & \omega ^5& \omega ^2\\ & & \omega ^5\end{array}\right).$$
(50)
With this choice, the gauge symmetry $`SO(16)`$ is broken down to $`SU(4)\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R\times U(1)^3`$. We can extract zero-modes in the chiral superfields $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ through the transformation property (5-7) with $`(l,m)=(4,3)`$. The zero-modes are listed in the Table 1. The $`L_i`$ and $`\overline{R}_i`$ include left- and right-handed quarks and leptons and $`C_i`$ includes vector-like colored Higgs. The model thus includes two chiral families in the bulk and three electroweak bidoublets $`H_i`$.

Since the three $`N=1`$ chiral multiplets $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ are in the gauge multiplets, those fields have gauge interactions with each other in 6D. The trilinear interaction term from Eq.(1)

$$S=d^6x[d^2\theta \frac{1}{kg^2}\mathrm{Tr}(\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }[\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Phi }^c])+h.c.]$$
(51)
includes bulk superpotential for the zero modes,

$$S=d^6xd^2\theta y_6\left(L_3H_1\overline{R}_3+L_2H_2\overline{R}_2+(H_1S_2H_2S_1)H_3+\overline{R}_3C_1\overline{R}_2+L_3C_2L_2\right)+h.c.,$$
(52)
which includes Yukawa couplings.

Taking into account the normalization factors of the wave functions in the kinetic term, we find that the six dimensional Yukawa coupling is equal to six dimensional gauge coupling, $`y_6=g_6`$. The corresponding four dimensional couplings are derived as the coordinates of extra dimensions are integrated out in the action. Thus, the four dimensional Yukawa and gauge coupling can be the same dimensionless number if the following conditions are satisfied : 1) The brane-localized gauge and Yukawa interactions and their threshold corrections can be negligible. 2) The zero modes of fermions are not localized at different points on the orbifold. 3) The four dimensional fields are not largely mixed with other brane-localized fields.

## 3 Implications of the Model

We first discuss the implications of the bulk interaction in Eq. (52). Suppose that the vacuum expectation values are given to $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ which are the singlet under Pati-Salam symmetry. Then one linear combination of bidoublet Higgses and $`H_3`$ become heavy, and the following linear combination remains light:

$$H=\frac{1}{\sqrt{S_1^2+S_2^2}}(H_1S_1+H_2S_2).$$
(53)
The Yukawa coupling terms are rewritten by using this light bidoublet Higgs as

$$L_3H_1\overline{R}_3+L_2H_2\overline{R}_2\frac{1}{\sqrt{S_1^2+S_2^2}}(S_1L_3H\overline{R}_3+S_2L_2H\overline{R}_2).$$
(54)
The bulk superpotential term has a $`Z_2`$ flavor symmetry such as

$$L_3L_2,\overline{R}_3\overline{R}_2,H_1H_2,S_1S_2,H_3H_3,C_1C_1,C_2C_2.$$
(55)
The vacuum expectation values of $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ can break this $`Z_2`$ symmetry. Assuming $`S_1S_2`$, we obtain the fermion mass hierarchy between the 3rd and 2nd family, supposing that $`L_3`$ and $`\overline{R}_3`$ are for the third generation and $`L_2`$ and $`\overline{R}_2`$ are for the second generation. Of course, this is just a toy structure, since we still have a wrong relation, $`m_c/m_t=m_s/m_b=m_\mu /m_\tau `$. We don’t have flavor mixing in the bulk superpotential either. These problems can be solved by introducing brane-localized interaction. The vacuum expectation values of $`SU(2)_R`$ triplet and $`SU(4)`$ adjoint Higgs can break the wrong mass relation in the similar way as in the usual Pati-Salam model.

We comment on the colored Higgs $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$. The colored Higgs can get mass as a brane-localized term such as $`mC_1C_2`$. The mass term does not violate the baryon (lepton) number conservation. The mass terms such as $`mC_1^2`$ or $`mC_2^2`$ violate the conservation, but such mass terms are forbidden by extra $`U(1)`$ symmetry.

Since we project out the vector-like partners by $`Z_6`$, the remaining fermion components in Table 1 give rise to gauge anomaly for the two linear combinations of three extra $`U(1)`$ symmetries. Green-Schwarz mechanism  can be used to cancel out for only one linear combination. Thus we have to introduce other brane fields which are non-singlets under Pati-Salam symmetry to cancel the anomaly. This can be interpreted as the origin of the 1st family. For example, if we introduce brane fields such as

$$L_1:(\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟏})_{1,1,1},\overline{R}_1:(\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})_{1,1,1},H_4:(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟐})_{1,1,1},$$
(56)
the anomaly such as $`SU(4)^2\times U(1)`$, $`SU(2)_L^2\times U(1)`$ and $`SU(2)_R^2\times U(1)`$ are cancelled out. Then, introducing appropriate singlet under Pati-Salam symmetry with non-zero extra $`U(1)`$ charges, we can obtain anomaly free particle contents. If we adopt the Green-Schwarz mechanism, we can make it anomaly free by introducing $`L_1`$ and $`\overline{R}_1`$ with appropriate $`U(1)`$ charges without introducing $`H_4`$. In any case, this model contains three families naturally.

We identify the two families originating from gauge multiplet with the 3rd and 2nd (or 1st) family, and 1st (or 2nd) family is brane-localized fields at 3-brane fixed point. Then the Yukawa couplings for 3rd family, $`y_t`$, $`y_b`$ and $`y_\tau `$, are unified to the gauge couplings at compactification scale, if we neglect a small correction in Eq.(54), and the correction coming from brane-localized interaction by assuming large volume suppression. The hierarchy of Yukawa couplings for 2nd (or 1st) family is derived by assuming $`S_1S_2`$ as we mentioned before, and the Yukawa couplings for 1st (or 2nd) family are naturally small since their values are suppressed by volume factor of the extra dimensions.

We assume that the compactification scale from 6D to 4D is the same scale where $`SU(4)\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R\times U(1)^2`$ gauge symmetry are broken to Standard Model one, choosing appropriate Higgs superfields. So below the compactification scale, we have usual MSSM particle content with gauge-Yukawa unification condition for particles from third family

$$\alpha _1=\alpha _2=\alpha _3=\alpha _t=\alpha _b=\alpha _\tau $$
(57)
where $`\alpha _1`$, $`\alpha _2`$ and $`\alpha _3`$ corresponds hypercharge (with proper normalization), weak and strong interaction couplings and $`\alpha _t`$, $`\alpha _b`$, $`\alpha _\tau `$ are the top, bottom and tau Yukawa coupling respectively. We use the notation $`y_{t,b,\tau }^2/4\pi \alpha _{t,b,\tau }`$. Note that we neglect brane-localized gauge kinetic terms.

Due to a crucial reduction of the number of the fundamental parameters from the gauge-Yukawa coupling unification, we are lead immediately to a series of the very distinctive predictions (in absence of any large supersymmetric threshold corrections). Using the values of the electroweak parameters $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _w=0.2311\pm 0.0001`$ and $`\alpha _{EM}=127.92\pm 0.02`$ at $`M_Z`$ scale , we can determine the unification scale and unified coupling constant. Then, evolving the remaining couplings from the unification scale to the low energy, we predict<sup>4</sup><sup>4</sup>4The numerical calculation of gauge-Yukawa unification in a 4D model is demonstrated in the Ref..

$`\alpha _3(M_Z)=0.123,m_t=178\mathrm{GeV},{\displaystyle \frac{m_b}{m_\tau }}(M_Z)=1.77,\mathrm{tan}\beta =51.`$ (58)
These are in good agreement with experimental data  except the small discrepancy for $`\alpha _3`$ (world average value is $`\alpha _3=0.117\pm 0.002`$ ). The small discrepancy for $`\alpha _3`$ can be easily improved if we consider unification scale threshold of $`SU(4)`$ sextet, $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$.

We have made a choice that $`L_3`$ and $`\overline{R}_2`$ are in the chiral multiplet $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\overline{R}_3`$ and $`L_2`$ are in the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. Since the gauge transformations of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in Eqs.(2-3) are different, brane-localized 4D lagrangian is not left-right symmetric. The electroweak Higgs fields, $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$, are in the chiral multiplets $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ and its gauge transformation is linear, and thus we can introduce the brane-localized Yukawa coupling terms which give the CKM mixing angles.

We can also introduce the brane-localized right-handed neutrino mass terms for $`\overline{R}_3`$ with the brane fields $`(\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})`$, and the neutrino mass becomes small through the seesaw mechanism. However, $`\overline{R}_2`$ is in the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ whose gauge transformation is non-homogenous, and thus we cannot introduce the brane-localized Majorana mass term for $`\overline{R}_2`$. Therefore, the Majorana mass term for $`\overline{R}_2`$ should arise from bulk interaction. One might think that we can use Wilson-loop operator to make gauge transformation homogeneous as used in the Ref.. Actually, in 5D models with $`S^1`$ compactification, we can use the Wilson-loop operator, $`𝒫\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Sigma }𝑑y)`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }|_{\theta =0}=(\sigma +iA_5)/\sqrt{2}`$. However, since its simple extension breaks chirality in 6D models with $`T^2`$ compactification, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }|_{\theta =0}=(A_6+iA_5)/\sqrt{2}`$, we cannot use the Wilson-loop operator. Thus, we will use higher order bulk interactions. Since $`A\mathrm{\Phi }^c\mathrm{\Phi }\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Phi }^c[\mathrm{\Sigma },\mathrm{\Phi }]`$ is gauge covariant, $`Ae^\mathrm{\Lambda }Ae^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ under gauge transformation, $`(\mathrm{Tr}A)^2+\mathrm{Tr}A^2`$ can be gauge invariant bulk interactions. Such higher order bulk interactions include Majorana mass terms of $`\overline{R}_2`$, if we assume that $`(\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})`$ component in $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ get vacuum expectation values. The vacuum expectation values of $`(\mathrm{𝟒},\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟐})`$ component also break Pati-Salam symmetry down to Standard Model one. The vacua should satisfy the following $`F`$\- and $`D`$-flat conditions,

$`F_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}[\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Phi }^c]=0,`$ (59)
$`F_\mathrm{\Phi }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c\sqrt{2}[\mathrm{\Phi }^c,\mathrm{\Sigma }]=0,`$ (60)
$`F_{\mathrm{\Phi }^c}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }\sqrt{2}[\mathrm{\Sigma },\mathrm{\Phi }]=0,`$ (61)
$`D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\overline{}\mathrm{\Sigma }+\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}+[\mathrm{\Sigma },\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}])+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}([\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]+[\mathrm{\Phi }^c,\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}^c])=0.`$ (62)
If the vacua of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$ are commutative and holomorphic function of $`z`$ or $`\overline{z}`$, the $`F`$\- and $`D`$\- flat conditions are satisfied. Because of double periodicity, the vacua should be elliptic functions. We obtain the 4D Majorana mass terms by integrating out with respect to extra dimensions on the fundamental area of $`T^2/Z_6`$.

## 4 Conclusion and Discussion

The idea that the Higgs and/or the matter are unified in the higher dimensional supersymmetric gauge multiplet leads us naturally to the world in which the standard gauge group in 4D is unified in grand unified gauge group in higher dimensions.

We have considered the 6D $`N=2`$ supersymmetric $`SO(16)`$ gauge theory in the orbifold $`T^2/Z_6`$. The gauge group $`SO(16)`$ is broken down by $`Z_6`$ transformation property, and the model is reduced to $`N=1`$ supersymmetric Pati-Salam model $`SU(4)\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R`$ with three extra $`U(1)`$ symmetries in 4D.

In this model, bidoublet Higgs fields and two families of quarks and leptons are unified in the gauge sector in the 6D $`N=2`$ gauge supermultiplet. The vector-like partners of the quarks and leptons are projected out by $`Z_6`$ transformation property. The explicit mass terms of the Higgs fields are prohibited by the gauge invariance, and the $`N=1`$ supersymmetry preserve the masses of the Higgs fields to the electroweak scale. Furthermore, because of the unification of Higgs and matter in gauge multiplet, the 4D Yukawa interactions, which we need in order to give masses to the fermions by Higgs mechanism, arise from gauge interaction in 6D lagrangian. This is the most interesting feature of this model.

One of the families in gauge multiplet can be identified to the 3rd family, and then we meet an attractive possibility that 3rd family Yukawa couplings can be unified to the gauge coupling at grand unified scale. The numerical results of the renormalization group flow of the gauge as well as the Yukawa couplings give good agreement with low energy data for the top quark mass and bottom-tau mass ratio with large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. Since two linear combinations of extra $`U(1)`$ symmetries give gauge anomalies, we have to introduce additional fields to cancel them. The additional fields can be identified with another family. So this model has three families naturally. Though the bulk interaction gives wrong relations for the mass ratios of quarks and leptons in the same way as in the naive Pati-Salam model, the structure of bulk interaction is interesting and is easily corrected.

Since $`SO(16)`$ is one of the regular maximal subgroup of $`E_8`$, the $`E_8`$ gauge theory is easily reduced to our $`SO(16)`$ model considering the periodic boundary conditions: $`V(x^\mu ,z+2\pi R,\overline{z}+2\pi R)=𝒯V(x^\mu ,z,\overline{z})`$ and using the same conditions for chiral multiplets $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^c`$. The $`E_8`$ adjoint $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟒𝟖}`$ is decomposed to $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟎}+\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟖}`$ under $`SO(16)`$. Assigning $`T=+`$ for $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟎}`$ and $`T=`$ for $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟖}`$, the spinor representation $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟖}`$’s are projected out, and $`E_8`$ symmetry is broken down to $`SO(16)`$. In some scenarios in superstring theory, quarks and leptons are included in the spinor representation $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟖}`$, while in our model matters and Higgses are included in $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟐𝟎}`$, and its implications need further investigation.

## Acknowledgments

We thank K.S. Babu, R.N. Mohapatra, H.P. Nilles and S. Raby for useful discussions. This work was supported in part by US DOE Grants # DE-FG030-98ER-41076 and DE-FG-02-01ER-45684.


format: text

text:
# Strong CP 𝜽-problem in QCD and local gluon condensate

## I Introduction

The strong CP problem reveals itself by the term of lagrangian permitting the CP-violation in an explicit form

$$_\theta =\theta \frac{\alpha _s}{8\pi }ϵ_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }G_a^{\mu \nu }(x)G_a^{\alpha \beta }(x),$$
(1)
where a priori free quantity $`\theta `$ denotes the effective parameter including the bare contribution as well as the term caused by the matrix of quark masses $`M`$,

$$\theta =\theta _{bare}\text{arg}(detM).$$

The smallness of $`\theta `$ following from the experimental observations, basically, by the constraints on the electric dipole moment of neutron, looks rather accidental in QCD, unless we do not involve some additional mechanisms. The most elegant opportunity is the Peccei–Quinn symmetry PQ  introducing an axion field coupled to the CP-odd product of gluon strength tensors in (1). In that case, the quantity $`\theta `$ gains the dynamical nature due to the axion $`a`$, so that $`\theta \theta +a/f_a`$, where we have introduced the axion decay constant $`f_a`$, and the problem is solved by an appropriate effective potential for $`\theta `$, if the minimal energy is reached at $`\theta =0`$. Since the bare and quark mass terms in $`\theta `$ lead to a global additive redefinition of axion field, we can easily see that the positive mass squared of axion in the effective action is a necessary condition in order to control the stability, while the position of stable point should be at $`\theta =0`$ to get the above solution of strong CP-problem.

The real value of axion mass depends on whether the axion is coupled to the quark fields or not. The corresponding term of fermion contribution is given by

$$_f=\mathrm{i}g_na\overline{q}_n\gamma _5q_n,$$
(2)
where $`n`$ marks the quark flavor KSVZ . There is a possibility to introduce the coupling to the leptons, too, DFSZ . So, due to the fermion component the mixing of axion with the pseudo-Goldstone bosons appearing under the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry results in the following general formula CKK  for the axion mass:

$$m_a^2=\frac{N_a^2}{f_a^2}\frac{\overline{q}qK}{\overline{q}qK\text{Tr}M^1},$$
(3)
where $`N_a`$ is the color anomaly of Peccei–Quinn current, which we put equal to 1, $`\overline{q}q`$ denotes the quark condensate111Further, one usually insets the relation $`(m_u+m_d)\overline{q}q=m_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2`$ with $`\overline{q}q=\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d`$ and $`f_\pi 93.3`$ MeV., while $`K`$ is a dimensional quantity ordinary represented by the instanton-induced term in the effective potential. Therefore, the light quarks coupled to the axion essentially change the situation, since they suppress purely gluon contribution. Nevertheless, the consideration of gluon term in the quadratic $`\theta `$-action remains actual as the leading correction to the quark condensate, if the axion is coupled to the quarks, or as the main term, if the axion is coupled to the gluons, only.

In the present study we calculate the effective action quadratic in $`\theta `$ due to the contribution of the local gluon condensate. This contribution can be competitive with the term induced by the instantons, since, first, as observed by the lattice simulations, the instantons do not dominate in the determination of vacuum properties in QCD because the vacuum is too warm, second, modelling the gluon condensate by the dilute instanton gas is problematic as the gas should consist of rather wide and dense instantons in order to reach the observed magnitude of the gluon condensate. In addition, the distribution over the instanton sizes involves extra model-parameters. Thus, the gluon condensate contribution itself is of interest.

## II Calculations and results

In the calculation of diagram shown in Fig. 1 we take the leading term caused by the local gluon condensate,

$`G_a^{\mu \nu }(x)G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(y)=G_a^{\mu \nu }(0)G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(0)`$
$`+y^\alpha G_a^{\mu \nu }(0)_\alpha G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(0)+x^\alpha _\alpha G_a^{\mu \nu }(0)G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(0)`$
$`+x^\alpha y^\beta _\alpha G_a^{\mu \nu }(0)_\beta G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(0)+\mathrm{}`$
$`=G_a^{\mu \nu }(0)G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}(0)+\text{higher condensates}`$ (4)
so that we can write down its contribution to the effective action in the explicit form

$`\text{i}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\theta \theta }`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{k0}{lim}(\text{i})^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{8\pi }}\right)^2ϵ_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }ϵ_{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}}G_a^{\mu \nu }G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}\times `$ (5)
$`\text{i}k^\alpha (\text{i}k^\alpha ^{}){\displaystyle \frac{\text{i}g^{\beta \beta ^{}}}{k^2}}\delta _{ab}F_{comb},`$
where the combinatoric factor $`F_{comb}=16`$ is determined by the permutations of gluon strength tensors and the evident relation $`ϵ_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }(^\alpha A_a^\beta ^\beta A_a^\alpha )=2ϵ_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }^\alpha A_a^\beta `$.

For the vacuum expectation value we evidently have the following general expression conserving the color and Lorentz symmetries:

$$G_a^{\mu \nu }G_b^{\mu ^{}\nu ^{}}=\frac{\delta _{ab}}{96}(g^{\mu \mu ^{}}g^{\nu \nu ^{}}g^{\mu \nu ^{}}g^{\nu \mu ^{}})G_d^{\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }^d.$$
(6)
Then, we find the gluon condensate part of quadratic term in the effective potential for the global phase $`\theta `$

$$V_{\theta ^2}[G^2]=\theta ^2\frac{\alpha _s^2}{8\pi ^2}G_a^{\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }^a,$$
(7)
while the linear term due to the bare lagrangian in (1) does not contribute into the vacuum energy, since the physical vacuum infers condition (6).

We can straightforwardly get the contribution given by the local quark condensate into the quadratic term of axion in the way analogous to the described calculation with the gluon condensate, so that

$$V_{a^2}[\overline{q}q]=a^2\underset{n}{}\frac{|g_n|^2}{m_n}\overline{q}_nq_n,$$
(8)
which can be further transformed after the substitution for the universal coupling of the axion to the quarks CKK

$$g_n=\frac{1}{f_a}\frac{1}{\text{Tr}M^1},$$
(9)
expressing a consistency for the definition of axion decay constant through the calculation of axial anomaly and the absence of mass mixing between the axion and neutral pseudo-Goldstone mesons $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta `$. Here, $`M`$ denotes the diagonal mass matrix of light quarks ($`u,d`$). Then, we get

$$V_{a^2}[\overline{q}q]=\frac{1}{2}\frac{a^2}{f_a^2}\overline{q}q\frac{m_um_d}{m_u+m_d},$$
(10)
which reproduces the result of CKK  in the case of quark condensate dominance. We stress that the mixing of the axion with the flavor-singlet meson leads to the quadratic axion potential tending to zero in the limit of massless light quark in agreement with the general formula given by (3) despite the calculated term due to the local gluon condensate.

Indeed, comparing (10) with (7) after the substitution of $`\theta a/f_a`$ we could observe that the contribution by the local gluon condensate dominates in the axion mass. The picture is critically changed, if we take into account the neutral singlet of SU(3) flavor group. This singlet is coupled to the gluon anomaly, too, in the same manner as the axion with an analogous constant $`f_s`$ instead of $`f_a`$, which produces the mixing of masses for the axion and singlet CKK . The resulting effect has been described in the Introduction, and we return to the quark condensate dominance in the axion mass up to small corrections. The description of above mechanism is given in CKK  in detail.

Nevertheless, we stress that expression (7) gives explicit result in contrast to rather indefinite instanton-induced potential.

Let us discuss the renormalization group (RG) properties of results obtained. First, we can easily see that the contribution by the quark condensate (10) enters into the axion mass in the RG invariant form, since the ratio of quark masses and the product of quark mass with the condensate are invariant under the action of RG. Second, the gluon condensate term due to (7) reveals the RG dependence with nonzero anomalous dimension in QCD. However, this anomalous dimension is in the next $`\alpha _s`$-order under study. Therefore, we have no any contradiction with the QCD principles in the given accuracy over $`\alpha _s`$.

We do not make some numerical estimates, since they would be rather qualitative under assumptions on the effective value of $`\alpha _s`$.

Thus, we clarify the physical meaning of our calculations and results.

## III Conclusion

We have calculated the contribution by the local gluon condensate into the effective potential quadratic over the $`\theta `$ determining the CP-violating term of the gluon anomaly in QCD. Such the effective potential gives the contribution into the axion mass providing the solution of strong CP-problem in the Peccei–Quinn mechanism. We expect the dominance of contribution caused by the local gluon condensate in comparison with the instanton-induced potential, which could be tested by the lattice simulations.

The axion plays an essential role in the connection of particle physics with the cosmology, in particular, as a dark matter candidate Kh . This fact makes the studies on its mass to be rather significant. We see that the QCD dynamics in such the investigations is of importance. We would like to point to some recent interesting papers devoted to the problem under discussion: solutions of strong CP-problem Gl ; Ber , on the Yang–Mills vacuum Ch .

This work is in part supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grants 01-02-99315, 01-02-16585.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The behavior of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) at high temperature has been an object of intense theoretical study over the last decade. For a large part this effort was driven by the fascinating possibility to experimentally generate a new state of matter – the quark-gluon plasma. Owing to the asymptotic freedom of QCD  the expectations were high that the physics of this plasma would be accessible to thermal perturbation theory (TPT) for an experimentally realistic range of temperatures above the deconfinement transition. It was soon discovered that the perturbative expansion of thermodynamic potentials is in principle limited to a finite (nonanalytic) order in $`\alpha _s`$, see  and refs. therein. At asymptotically high temperature $`TT_c\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ TPT converges well in calculations of the thermodynamic potentials. For realistic temperatures, however, the convergence of the naive perturbative corrections to the ideal-gas behavior is poor. Typically, one obtains an alternating behavior which destroys the predictivity of TPT. Hints on the presence of large nonperturbative effects in the deconfined phase are due to lattice simulations of the thermodynamic potentials. For example, the lattice results for the QCD pressure at $`T4T_c`$ are typically 20% lower than the Stefan-Boltzmann limit . To tackle these nonperturbative effects a combination of dimensionally reduced TPT and lattice QCD already turned out to be fruitful . Hopefully it will generate an even deeper understanding of the hot gauge dynamics in the future. At the time being, however, the only genuine predictive but unfortunately not very insightful approach seems to be a pure lattice analysis. The present status of our understanding of hot (3+1)D gauge dynamics is thus not overly satisfactory.

In this paper we propose a cascade-type effective theory for hot gauge dynamics with ingredients that are genuinely nonperturbative. In this sense several ideas have been put forward in the past. An approach, which focuses on the nonperturbative aspects of hot gauge dynamics around the deconfinement transition, was advocated in . It is based on the Polyakov loop variable as the relevant degree of freedom in a dimensionally reduced 3D field theory. The Lagrangian of this theory is constrained by the demand of renormalizability and the global Z3 symmetry. Under a number of assumptions an estimate of the Polyakov-loop correlator predicts the change of mass ratios across the transition. A discussion of a hot (2+1)D Georgi-Glashow model was carried out in .

To set up some of our conventions we now give a brief overview on the scenario which emerges in the present work. We consider the underlying dynamical principle to be a hot (3+1)D SU($`N`$) Yang-Mills theory. In this introduction we start our discussion at low temperature.

As in  the confining phase (referred to as the center phase) is characterized by condensed magnetic vortices. A phase transition takes place at a critical temperature $`T_{MC}^c`$ where the magnetic gauge couplings $`g_n`$, belonging to an Abelian Higgs model valid within some range of temperatures above $`T_{MC}^c`$, diverge. Typical Nielson-Oleson vortices of this Abelian Higgs model, which are quasi-classical objects for temperature sufficiently larger than $`T_{MC}^c`$, become zero-energy defects for $`g_n\mathrm{}`$ and thus condense . The divergence of the gauge couplings $`g_n`$ at $`T_{MC}^c`$ implies that gauge bosons decouple from the dynamics for $`T<T_{MC}^c`$. Thus the effective theory, valid for temperatures below $`T_{MC}^c`$, has no continuous gauge symmetry. We refer to the phase described by the Abelian Higgs model as the magnetic phase. The validity of a magnetic description in a range $`T_{MC}^c<T<T_{MM}^c`$ derives from the fact that the gauge coupling $`e`$ in an electric phase diverges when the critical temperature $`T_{EM}^c>T_{MC}^c`$ is approached from above. The effective electric description assumes that the underlying SU($`N`$) theory is supplemented by an adjoint Higgs field $`\varphi `$, which breaks SU($`N`$) maximally, SU($`N`$)$``$ U(1)N-1. On the one hand, during the blow-up of $`e`$ tree-level massless gauge bosons of the electric phase remain tree-level massless and tree-level massive gauge bosons decouple due to $`me|\varphi |`$. This phenomenon renders the theory Abelian. On the other hand, magnetic monopoles, which are quasi-classical objects deep inside the electric phase, become massless and thus condense. For finite values of the magnetic couplings $`g_n`$ at $`T<T_{EM}^c`$ monopole condensates give mass to the magnetic gauge bosons. The dynamics of the electric ground state derived in Sec. 3.1 is such that the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the Higgs field modulus vanishes for $`T\mathrm{}`$. Asymptotically, we thus arrive at the fundamental pure gauge theory we assumed to be underlying the dynamics.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. 2 we set up and explain our approach. It rests on the assumption that SU($`N`$) thermodynamics can be expressed in terms of noninteracting quasi-particles and the (incomplete) classical dynamics describing a condensed part – the ground state of the system. In Secs. 3 and 4 we show at tree-level how the thermodynamic self-consistency of this assumption determines the nonperturbative evolution with temperature of the gauge couplings in the electric and in the magnetic phase. For the electric phase we briefly investigate in Sec. 3.3 how radiative corrections give masses to the tree-level massless gauge bosons in the strong-coupling limit. A discussion of the confining phase, where the discrete subgroup ZN is broken spontaneously, is carried out in Section 5. In Section 6 we match the three different phases using Clausius-Clapeyron conditions. As a result our approach implies that SU($`N`$) thermodynamics is parameterized by a single mass scale. A summary and an outlook on future work is given in Sec. 7. In addition, some aspects of cosmological phase transitions are discussed in the light of our approach.

## 2 General aspects of the construction

In this section we explain our approach to hot SU($`N`$) gauge dynamics. We start with the fundamental assumption that away from a phase transition quantum interactions can be expressed in terms of noninteracting quasi-particle statistical fluctuations, that is, free-particle modes with a $`T`$ dependent mass, and in terms of the classical Euclidean dynamics of charged scalar Higgs field(s) $`\{\varphi \}`$ describing a condensed part of the system. The latter represents the ground state of the theory at given $`T`$. In the following we consider the situation that the effective theory describing SU($`N`$) thermodynamics in some temperature range has a continuous gauge symmetry111In Sec. 5 the case of a discrete symmetry will be discussed.. In such an effective description gauge fields $`\{A_\mu \}`$ can be present in an explicit form. They also can appear implicitly as condensed degrees of freedom (CDOF) which are defined in terms of $`\{A_\mu \}`$. At a given temperature the CDOFs build the ground state whose dynamics is described classically. We will see later that the assumption of a nonfluctuating, classical part in the system turns out to be self-consistent. Let us discuss this part in more detail. First we consider a situation where explicit gauge fields are absent. In this hypothetic case the scalar fields $`\{\varphi \}`$ represent CDOFs without residual gauge field interactions. Condensation may occur in the limit where the to-be-condensed degrees of freedom carry no energy. Consequently, the condensate would have vanishing energy density. In a macroscopic approach, where the resolution is comparable with temperature, this is a condition which must be imposed. We will refer to it as zero-energy condition (ZEC). Scalar field configurations, which solely depend on the Euclidean time coordinate $`x_4`$, carry no energy density if they are Bogomol’nyi-Prasad-Sommefield (BPS)  saturated solutions to the scalar-sector equations of motion. To satisfy the ZEC nontrivially in thermal equilibrium we thus have to construct a potential $`V`$ for the fields $`\{\varphi \}`$ which permits periodic and BPS saturated solutions. In addition, the solutions $`\{\varphi \}`$ must yield an $`x_4`$ independence of $`V`$. The required potential is of the $`\varphi ^2`$-type.

Next we let explicit gauge fields enter the stage. In a thermalized system no spatial direction is singled out. The part of the system being represented by statistically fluctuating (quasi-)particles already satisfies this requirement. In consequence, the ground state ought not carry any gauge field curvature. This situation will be referred to as zero-curvature condition (ZCC) in the following. A gauge field configuration, which is pure gauge and a solution to the gauge field equations of motion in the background of the scalar-field configuration, is needed. According to the gauge field equations of motion it is necessary for the existence of these pure gauge configurations that source terms vanish. This happens if gauge covariant derivatives annihilate the scalar backgrounds. As a result, the ZEC for the ground state, which was imposed in the absence of explicit gauge fields, is violated. This phenomenon has the following interpretation: The energy density of the ground state, given by the potential $`V(\{\varphi \})`$, is generated by the CDOF interactions which are mediated by explicit gauge fields. The alert reader may object that our ground state configurations are no longer exact solutions to the Euclidean equations of motion since the gauge field equations were solved in the background of the configurations $`\{\varphi \}`$ which, in turn, were obtained by solving scalar-sector BPS equations at $`\{A_\mu \}=0`$. The influence of the explicit gauge fields on the scalar field configurations is thus ignored. In fact, viewing the ground state as a thermalized system by itself leads to a contradiction to the fundamental thermodynamic relation for total pressure $`p`$ and the total energy density $`\epsilon `$

$$\epsilon (T)=T\frac{dp(T)}{dT}p(T).$$
(1)
Relation (1) would directly follow from the (hypothetic) partition function for such a system . We conclude that configurations, which satisfy the requirements of ZEC and ZCC but, at the same time, do not solve the Euclidean equations of motion completely, are thermodynamically inconsistent. This is the point where the fluctuating part of the system comes in. It will be demonstrated in Sections 3.2, 4.2, and 5.2 that the above-mentioned $`\varphi ^2`$-type potentials for the Higgs-fields imply large masses ($`T`$) for the collective modes of the CDOFs. These modes are thus of no statistical relevance. In consequence, we are left with gauge-field QPEs. At tree-level their masses $`\{m\}`$ are proportional to the product of a gauge-coupling and a Higgs-field modulus which both can be small.

Let us now come back to the problem with the incomplete ground-state ‘solution’ to the classical equations of motion. It is physically tempting to interprete the reaction of the condensed sector, represented by the Higgs-field configurations, on the presence of zero-curvature gauge-field configurations in terms of emission and absorption processes of gauge-field quasi-particle excitations (QPEs). This renders the condensed part a heat reservoir for the fluctuating gauge fields! In each emission process the ground state inherits some of its properties to the QPE in the form of a $`T`$ dependent mass $`m`$. This picture is thermodynamically self-consistent (TSC) if the conditions

$$_{\{m\}}p=0$$
(2)
are satisfied. Notice that in (2) the pressure $`p`$ has a ground-state component and a component due to QPEs. A tree-level consequence of (2) is the prediction of the nonperturbative evolution of the gauge couplings222Radiative corrections do not change the qualitative picture, see Sec. 3.3. in the cooling system. When some critical temperature $`T^c`$ is approached the couplings diverge at some finite Higgs-field modulus. This means that the tree-level massive gauge bosons, whose mass is proportional to the gauge coupling times the Higgs-VEV modulus decouple from the dynamics. It also implies that topological defects, whose action scales with an inverse power of the gauge coupling, start to behave extremely quantum mechanically. They condense and form the ground state of the subsequent phase of reduced (gauge) symmetry at lower temperature.

We have summarized our construction graphically in Fig. 1.

How does thermal perturbation theory comply with this picture? At high temperature one naively expects it to yield a good description due to asymptotic freedom. It is well-known, however, that a straightforward expansion in powers of $`\alpha _s`$ can be carried out in perturbation theory only up to a finite order due to the magnetic screening problem. Moreover, a perturbative expansion of the thermodynamic potentials converges only poorly even at temperatures considerable larger than $`T^c`$. Reorganizations of perturbation theory have been suggested which amount to mathematical manipulations of the weak coupling expansion and thus are of a mere academic value. More promising are variational approaches such as screened perturbation theory . Specifically, hard thermal loop perturbations theory (HTLPT) uses a variational mass parameter $`m_D`$ identified with the Debye screening mass in a weak coupling expansion in gluodynamics. For $`T10T^c`$ the approach seems to yield a stable result for the thermodynamic pressure as one goes from leading to next-to-leading order in the loop expansion . With decreasing $`T`$ stability gets worse and the disagreement with the lattice becomes large. A matching of our approach with HTLPT can be performed by demanding that the typical Higgs induced gauge boson mass in the electric phase, see Sec. 3.2, and its first derivative w.r.t. $`T`$ coincide with $`m_D`$ and $`\frac{dm_D}{dT}`$, respectively. These are two conditions for two unknown quanitites, namely $`T_{\text{match}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_E`$, see Sec. 3.1.

We conclude this section with the remark that thermodynamic models assuming a phenomenological ground-state energy, a phenomenological ground-state pressure and gluonic QPEs have been fitted to lattice data for the total energy density, the total pressure, and the entropy of hot SU(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills theories  and hot QCD . It was found in all cases that the common mass $`m_g`$ of the quasi-particles rises rapidly when the critical temperature of the deconfinement transition is approached from above – in qualitative agreement with our present discussion.

## 3 Very high temperature: Electric phase

### 3.1 Model and ground-state structure

At very high temperature we consider the following Euclidean action

$$S_E=_0^{x_4}𝑑\tau d^3x\left\{\frac{1}{2}\text{tr}\left[\widehat{G_{\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }}\right]+\text{tr}\left[𝒟_\mu \varphi 𝒟_\mu \varphi \right]+𝒱(\varphi )\right\},$$
(3)
where field strength and covariant derivative are respectively defined as

$`G_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu +ie[A_\mu ,A_\nu ],𝒟_\mu \varphi =_\mu \varphi +ie[A_\mu ,\varphi ],`$
$`A_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`A_\nu ^at^a,(a=1,\mathrm{},N^21).`$ (4)
The hat symbol on top of the gauge kinetic term in (3) indicates that certain classes of one-particle irreducible Feynman diagrams, which would follow from the usual gauge Lagrangian, are forbidden, see Sec. 3.3. The hermitian and traceless matrices $`t_a`$ are the generators of SU($`N`$) in the fundamental representation. They are normalized as $`\text{tr}t^at^b=\frac{1}{2}\delta ^{ab}`$. We assume that SU($`N`$) is spontaneously broken as

$$\text{SU}(N)\text{U}(1)^{N1}$$
(5)
by the VEV of an adjoint Higgs field,

$$\varphi =\varphi ^at^a,(\varphi ^a\text{real}).$$
(6)
In pure SU($`N`$) gauge theory such a field does not exist on the fundamental level. It is assumed here that the Higgs VEV of Eq. (6) forms due to the condensation of topological defects. The so-called calorons  are possible candidates. Calorons are nontrivial-holonomy and BPS saturated solutions to the classical, Euclidean Yang-Mills equations at finite $`T`$. An isolated caloron thus carries no energy, and consequently it qualifies for a CDOF. For SU($`N`$) there are $`N`$ BPS magnetic monopole constituents in each caloron. They manifest themselves the stronger as lumps in the action density the lower $`T`$. The overall magnetic charge of a caloron is zero. The presence of constituent BPS monopoles is a crucial fact which we will come back to in Section 3.2. It is conceivable that the assumed condensation of the adjoint Higgs field (6) is microscopically driven by interacting calorons and anticalorons. For $`N>2`$ a possible local definition of $`\varphi ^a`$ in terms of fundamental fields is

$$\varphi ^ad^{abc}G_{\mu \nu ,b}G_{\mu \nu ,c},$$
(7)
where $`d^{abc}`$ denotes the tensor defined by $`\text{tr}t^a\{t^b,t^b\}=Dd^{abc}`$. It is also possible that the Higgs VEV of Eq. (6) has a nonlocal dependence on the fundamental fields $`A_\mu `$.

A gauge bosons, which is defined w.r.t. the generator $`t^a`$, acquires the following mass-squared

$$(m^a)^2=2e^2\text{tr}[\varphi ,t^a][\varphi ,t^a].$$
(8)
We will refer to the ($`N1`$) gauge fields, which remain massless at tree-level, as tree-level massless (TLM). The modes of the $`N(N1)`$ massive gauge fields are QPEs at tree-level. We will refer to them as tree-level heavy (TLH). In principle, there are in addition QPEs from the non-Goldstone directions of the Higgs-field excitations. We will show in Sec. 3.2 that these possible excitations are statistically irrelevant over the entire relevant temperature range.

Since the Higgs VEV $`\varphi `$ is a hermitian (traceless) matrix we can always reach a gauge where $`\varphi `$ is diagonal. We refer to this gauge as the diagonal gauge (DG). For a maximal symmetry breaking, SU($`N`$)$``$ U(1)N-1, all eigenvalues of $`\varphi `$ must be different. In DG and for even $`N`$ a possible traceless Higgs VEV is

$$\varphi =\text{diag}(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1,\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_2,\mathrm{},\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{N/2}),$$
(9)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i|\frac{\tau _3}{2},|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i|\sqrt{2\text{tr}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i^2},$$
(10)
$`\tau _3`$ refers to the third Pauli matrix, and $`|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i||\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_j|>0,(ij),`$ are real numbers. For odd $`N`$ the Higgs VEV in DG can be taken as

$$\varphi =\text{diag}(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1,\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_2,\mathrm{},\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{(N1)/2},0),$$
(11)
where the last entry is not a matrix but a number. We now relax the DG by allowing for SU(2) subgroup rotations to act on the matrices $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i`$. We refer to this incompletely fixed gauge as RDG. To avoid repetition we will address explicitly only the case when $`N`$ is even. A gauge invariant potential $`𝒱`$ is defined as333For odd $`N`$ the summation index and the label run up to $`(N1)/2`$ in (12) and in (13), (3.1), (17), (20), (21), respectively. In Eqs. (13), (3.1), and (20) the number zero is the last entry on the right-hand sides. The expression to the very right in Eq. (12) translates into $`\frac{1}{16}\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^6\text{tr}\left(\varphi _b^2\right)^1`$ for odd $`N`$. The block matrix $`\varphi _b`$ is defined as $`\varphi _b\text{diag}(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1,\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_2,\mathrm{},\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{(N1)/2})`$. Notice that $`\text{tr}\left(\varphi _b^2\right)^1`$ is a gauge invariant quantity.

$$𝒱(\varphi )\text{tr}\left[𝒱_{1/2}^{}𝒱_{1/2}\right]=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^6\underset{i=1}{\overset{N/2}{}}\frac{1}{|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i|^2}=\frac{1}{16}\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^6\text{tr}\left(\varphi ^2\right)^1.$$
(12)
In RDG we define

$$𝒱_{1/2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^3\text{diag}(\text{e}^{i\delta _1}\tau _3\frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1}{|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1|^2},\mathrm{},\text{e}^{i\delta _{N/2}}\tau _3\frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{N/2}}{|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{N/2}|^2}).$$
(13)
In (12) and (13) $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_E`$ denotes a mass scale. According to our general approach (see Sec. 2) we first disregard the gauge field sector. To describe the ground state in thermal equilibrium $`|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_i|`$ must not depend on any coordinate $`x_\mu `$ since it determines the potential in (12). Moreover, $`\varphi `$ must be periodic in $`x_4`$. For a zero-energy configuration the kinetic term in the Euclidean action (3) is equal to the potential term. Solutions to the ‘BPS’ equation

$$_{x_4}\varphi =𝒱_{1/2}$$
(14)
are guaranteed to satisfy this last condition. For $`\delta _i=\pm \frac{\pi }{2}`$ (14) has periodic solutions, namely

$`\varphi _{k_1,\mathrm{},k_{N/2}}(x_4)=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^3}{2\pi T}}}\times `$
$`\text{diag}(|k_1|^{1/2}\tau _1\mathrm{exp}\left[2\pi ik_1T\tau _3x_4\right],\mathrm{},|k_{N/2}|^{1/2}\tau _1\mathrm{exp}\left[2\pi ik_{N/2}T\tau _3x_4\right]).`$
Notice that $`|\varphi _{k_1,\mathrm{},k_{N/2}}|`$ vanishes for asymptotically large $`T`$, $`T\mathrm{\Lambda }_E`$. We thus recover the pure gauge theory. Due to asymptotic freedom perturbation theory should be applicable in this limit. The $`T`$ dependence of the solutions (3.1) ensures that thermodynamic potentials asymptotically approach their respective ideal-gas limits. In (3.1) the numbers $`k_i`$ denote positive or negative integers. Their modulus counts the number of times each SU(2) block winds around the pole at $`\varphi =0`$ in (13) as $`x_4`$ runs from zero to $`\beta `$. Each block can be gauge rotated to the form in (9) by SU(2) subgroup transformations. Consequently, for the solution (3.1) to break SU($`N)\text{U}(1)^{N1}`$ we have to impose

$$|k_i||k_j|,(ij).$$
(16)
The minimal way to satisfy (16) in view of the resulting potential is

$$k_1=1,k_2=2,\mathrm{},k_{N/2}=N/2.$$
(17)
Eqs. (17) imply

$`𝒱(|\varphi _{1,\mathrm{},N/2}|)`$ $``$ $`B_E(T)={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{8}}N({\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}+1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^3T(\text{even}N),`$
$`𝒱(|\varphi _{1,\mathrm{},(N1)/2}|)`$ $``$ $`B_E(T)={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{16}}(N^21)\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^3T(\text{odd}N).`$ (18)
Next explicit gauge fields may enter the stage. The ground state of the system is described by a zero-curvature configuration, $`G_{\mu \nu }0`$. Taking $`\varphi _{1,\mathrm{},N/2}`$ as a background in the equations of motion for the gauge fields,

$$𝒟_\mu G_{\mu \nu }=2ie[𝒟_\nu \varphi ,\varphi ],$$
(19)
is consistent with zero curvature: For $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ to be zero it is necessary that the right-hand side of (19) vanishes. This happens if $`𝒟_\nu \varphi =0`$. For the background $`\varphi _{1,\mathrm{},N/2}`$ it is easily checked that the pure-gauge configuration

$$A_\nu ^{1,\mathrm{},N/2}=\delta _{\nu 4}\frac{4\pi T}{e}\text{diag}(\frac{\tau _3}{2},2\frac{\tau _3}{2},\mathrm{},\frac{N}{2}\frac{\tau _3}{2})$$
(20)
satisfies the condition $`𝒟_\nu \varphi _{1,\mathrm{},N/2}=0`$. Therefore $`A_\nu ^{1,\mathrm{},N/2}`$ solves the equations of motion (19) at zero curvature. When evaluated on the configurations

$$(\varphi _{1,\mathrm{},N/2};A_\nu ^{1,\mathrm{},N/2}).$$
(21)
the action density in (3) reduces to the potential (3.1).

### 3.2 Thermal self-consistency and quasi-particles

To decide which QPEs are statistically relevant the masses of the associated fields have to be estimated. In this section we will be content with a tree-level analysis. QPEs fluctuate about the configuration (21). On the one hand, we find at even $`N`$ for non-Goldstone like scalars

$$\frac{m_{s,k}}{T}\sqrt{_{|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k|}^2𝒱}/T=\sqrt{12}\pi k,(k=1,\mathrm{},\frac{N}{2}).$$
(22)
Eq. (45) indicates that non-Goldstone like fluctuations are strongly Boltzmann suppressed. They can safely be neglected in the following. On the other hand, for TLH gauge bosons the mass-to-temperature ratios

$$\frac{m_{E,\alpha }^{TLH}}{T},(\alpha =1,\mathrm{},N(N1))$$
(23)
depend linearly on the gauge coupling modulus $`|e|`$ and on the ratios $`\frac{|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k|}{T}`$. Both quantities can be small, and thus gauge modes are possibly fluctuating. In DG, where $`\varphi _{rs}=\varphi _r\delta _{rs},(r,s=1,\mathrm{},N)`$, we may define the $`N(N1)`$ normalized generators, which correspond to the TLH gluons, as follows

$`t_{rs}^{IJ}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\delta _r^I\delta _s^J+\delta _s^I\delta _r^J\right),\stackrel{~}{t}_{rs}^{IJ}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\left(\delta _r^I\delta _s^J\delta _s^I\delta _r^J\right),`$ (24)
$`(I=1,\mathrm{},N,J>I).`$
Substituting (24) into (8) yields

$$(m^{IJ})^2=e^2(\varphi _I\varphi _J)^2.$$
(25)
for both generators $`t^{IJ}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}^{IJ}`$. According to (25) this leads to two-fold and four-fold degeneracies of gauge boson masses in the spectrum. The lowest mass $`m_E^{TLH}`$ is

$$m_E^{TLH}=|e|\{\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^3}{\pi TN}}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{1\frac{2}{N}}}1\right),(\text{even}N)\\ \sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_E^3}{\pi T(N1)}}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{1\frac{2}{N1}}}1\right),(\text{odd}N)\end{array}.$$

For simplicity we will set all masses $`m_{E,\alpha }^{TLH}`$ equal to $`m_E^{TLH}`$ in the following. Using (25) it is straightforward to take TLH masses into account exactly for $`N`$ given. When estimating the pressure component arising from TLH modes the approximation $`m_{E,\alpha }^{TLH}=m_E^{TLH}`$ yields an upper bound.

The total pressure of the system is

$$p_ET\frac{d\mathrm{ln}Z_E}{dV}$$
(26)
where $`Z_E`$ denotes a partition function,

$$Z_E\text{Tr}_{\text{periodic}}\mathrm{exp}\left[S_E^{\text{free}}\frac{B_EV}{T}\right],$$
(27)
and $`V`$ is the (infinite) three-dimensional (box-)volume of the system. The action $`S_E^{\text{free}}`$ decomposes into a part for the $`N(N1)`$ noninteracting TLH gauge bosons and a part for the $`(N1)`$ noninteracting TLM gauge bosons. The energy density of the ground-state, $`B_E(T)`$, is defined in (3.1). The total pressure $`p_E`$ follows from (26) and (27) as

$$p_E=p_E^{id}B_E(T).$$
(28)
The total energy density $`\epsilon _E`$

$$\epsilon _E=T\frac{dp_E(T)}{dT}p_E(T)$$
(29)
assumes the same form as in the case of $`B_E=`$const, $`m_E^{TLH}=`$const,

$$\epsilon _E\epsilon _E^{id}+B_E(T),$$
(30)
provided that the condition

$$\frac{p_E}{m_E^{TLH}}=\frac{p^{id}}{m_E^{TLH}}\frac{B_E}{m_E^{TLH}}=0$$
(31)
is satisfied . In (28) and (30) $`p_E^{id}(\epsilon _E^{id})`$ denote the pressure (energy density) of an ideal gas of $`(N1)`$ TLM gluons (2 polarizations) and $`N(N1)`$ TLH gluons (3 polarizations)

$`p_E^{id}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T^4}{2\pi ^2}}\left[2(N1)P(0)+3N(N1)P(a_E^{TLH})\right],`$
$`\epsilon _E^{id}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T^4}{2\pi ^2}}\left[2(N1)E(0)+3N(N1)E(a_E^{TLH})\right],a_E^{TLH}{\displaystyle \frac{m_E^{TLH}}{T}},`$
$`P(a)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑xx^2\mathrm{log}\left[1\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{x^2+a^2})\right],`$
$`E(a)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑xx^2{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{x^2+a^2}}{\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{x^2+a^2})1}}.`$ (32)
Eq. (31) expresses the TSC of the approach. Substituting (3.1) and (3.2) in (31) and performing a few elementary manipulations yields

$$\frac{d\lambda _E}{da_E^{TLH}}=\frac{12}{(2\pi )^6}\lambda _E^4a_E^{TLH}D(a_E^{TLH})\{\begin{array}{c}\frac{N1}{N+2},(\text{even}N)\\ \frac{N}{N+1},(\text{odd}N)\end{array}.$$

The following definitions have been made:

$$T_E\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_E}{2\pi },\lambda _E\frac{T}{T_E},D(a)_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\frac{x^2}{\sqrt{x^2+a^2}}\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left[\sqrt{x^2+a^2}\right]1}.$$

The evolution equation (3.2) can be solved numerically. Fig. 2 shows a plot of the function $`aD(a)`$ which appears on the right-hand side of Eq. (3.2). This function is peaked at $`a=1`$, and it is positive definite. As a consequence, the right-hand side of (3.2) is negative definite. It is thus possible to invert $`\lambda _E=\lambda _E(a_E^{TLH})`$ into a function $`a_E^{TLH}(\lambda _E)`$. Notice that in deriving (3.2) we have assumed that the gauge coupling $`e`$ depends on $`T`$ only implicitly via $`a_E^{TLH}`$.

The definitions for $`a_E^{TLH}`$ in (3.2) and for $`\lambda _E`$ in (3.2) can be inserted into (3.2), and the result can be solved for the gauge-coupling modulus $`|e|`$. We arrive at the following $`\lambda _E`$ dependence

$$|e|(\lambda _E)=\sqrt{\frac{\lambda _E^3}{8\pi ^2}}a_E^{TLH}(\lambda _E)\{\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{N}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{1\frac{2}{N}}}1\right),(\text{even}N)\\ \sqrt{N1}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{1\frac{2}{N1}}}1\right),(\text{odd}N)\end{array}.$$

For $`N=10`$ we will discuss the solutions to (3.2) more carefully in Sec. 6. At this point it is only important to notice that for a given value of $`N`$ and given initial conditions $`(\lambda _E^i,a_E^i)`$ the inverted solution $`a_E^{TLH}(\lambda _E)`$ diverges at some finite, critical value $`\lambda _E^c<\lambda _E^i`$. We associate this value with the critical temperature

$$T_{EM}^c=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_E}{2\pi }\lambda _E^c.$$
(33)
According to (3.2) the behavior

$$a_E^{TLH}\mathrm{}\text{as}TT_{EM}^c$$
(34)
implies that also the gauge coupling $`e`$ diverges for $`TT_{EM}^c`$!

Our approach to the ground-state dynamics was a macroscopic, thermodynamic one. On a microscopic level, that is, when probing the system with momenta larger than $`T`$, the ground state no longer is spatially homogeneous. We already pointed out that a good candidate for the CDOFs are calorons. Calorons have BPS monopole constituents. The mass of a singly charged BPS magnetic monopole of an SU(2) embedding labeled by $`k`$ is given as

$$M_{mon}=\frac{4\pi }{|e|}|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k|.$$
(35)
In (35) $`|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_k|`$ denotes the modulus of one of the SU(2) blocks which were obtained in (3.1). Obviously, for $`TT_{EM}^c`$ the mass of the magnetic monopole vanishes, $`M_{mon}0`$. This renders monopoles, which are released by the calorons at $`T_{EM}^c`$, good candidates for CDOFs. We expect a transition from the monopole uncondensed to the monopole condensed phase to occur at $`T_{EM}^c`$.

### 3.3 Radiatively induced mass for TLM modes

We have relied on a tree-level analysis in Sec. 3.2. According to our fundamental assumption all effects of the interaction between QPEs are encoded in their $`T`$ dependent masses. This constraint ought to be maintained on the quantum level. Starting from a one-particle reducible self-energy diagram, the generation of a 1PI self-energy diagram by additional gauge boson exchange(s) is forbidden. This 1PI diagram would double count the interaction in our approach based on QPEs. One may formulate the constraint in a more eidetic way: The exchange of a gauge boson between two clusters in a one-particle reducible diagram would correspond to a consideration of long-range correlations. These correlations are already accounted for by the ground-state dynamics which is responsible for the TLH masses at tree-level.

We have used in Sec. 3.2 and will exemplarily demonstrate in Sec. 7 that the gauge coupling $`e`$ is weak for $`TT_{EM}^c`$ and that there is a strong coupling regime for $`TT_{EM}^c`$. At weak coupling radiative corrections to the tree-level masses are of the usual, (resummed) perturbative screening type. At lowest order in $`|e|`$ we have

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{sc}\sqrt{N}|e|T.$$
(36)
For $`|e|1`$ this correction is thermodynamically irrelevant. At large coupling, $`|e|1`$, the masses of TLH modes are large. Thus TLH modes are thermodynamically irrelevant. TLH quantum fluctuations do radiatively induce masses for the TLM modes. Recall that TLM gauge bosons live in the Cartan sub-algebra. Thus they do not have a vertex with one another. They can only couple by means of intermediate TLH particles.

For the following discussion of the strong-coupling regime we assume that magnetic monopole do not appear as propagating degrees of freedom. At $`|e|1`$ the TLH propagators reduce to $`1/(m_E^{TLH})^2e^2`$. This leads to a power counting in $`e^2`$ for each TLM self-energy diagram. Our discussion uses the DG. The nonrenormalizability of this gauge is not an issue in our effective theory. In DG loop integrals are cut off at momenta $`T`$. The overall power of $`e^2`$ belonging to a TLM self-energy diagram is never negative which can easily be proven by induction. In Fig. 3 some 1PI contributions to the radiatively induced TLM mass at lowest order in $`e^2`$ are shown. It is not hard to see that the use of a one-loop resummed TLH propagator (summation of TLM-tadpoles) in diagrams $`(a)`$ and $`(c)`$ leads to radiatively generated contributions to the TLM mass $`\sqrt{N}T`$. Corrections are controlled by powers of the small parameter $`(N1)^1(T_E/T)^3`$. It thus appears that the radiatively generated mass of TLM gauge bosons stays finite in the limit $`|e|\mathrm{}`$. To satisfy TSC with loop-induced masses for TLM modes is more involved than at tree-level. One can express loop-induced masses for TLM modes by $`a_E^{TLH}`$ and the gauge coupling $`|e|`$. As a consequence, the partial pressure exerted by TLH modes depends on $`T`$, $`a_E^{TLH}`$, and $`|e|`$. The latter can be expressed by $`a_E^{TLH}`$ using (3.2). Imposing TSC (Eq. (31)) we see that radiative corrections lead to the occurrence of an additive correction to the right-hand side of (3.2) due to the TLM modes becoming loop-induced QPEs. Although we have not investigated this term in detail we do not expect it to lead to a qualitative change of the tree-level behavior. After all the pre-factor of the associated integral is down by $`(N1)^1`$ due to the smaller number of degrees of freedom associated with TLM modes. Clearly, an analysis involving higher 1PI irreducible loop orders is needed. We leave this analysis for future work.

## 4 High temperature: Magnetic phase

### 4.1 Model and ground-state structure

We have noticed in Sec. 3.2 that the $`N(N1)`$ TLH gauge bosons in the electric phase, which correspond to the broken generators of the coset SU($`N`$)/U(1)N-1, decouple from the dynamics at the point $`T_{EM}^c`$. The surviving gauge symmetry is U(1)N-1. This symmetry is spontaneously broken by the condensation of $`(N1)`$ monopole species. We introduce a classical, complex scalar field $`\varphi _n`$ for each of these condensates. There is a gauge field $`B_\mu ^{(n)}`$ for the $`n`$th U(1) symmetry. This field is coupled with strength $`g_n`$ to the condensate $`\varphi _n`$. The associated field strength $`F_{\mu \nu }^{(n)}`$ and the covariant derivative $`D_\mu `$ are defined as

$$F_{\mu \nu }^{(n)}=_\mu B_\nu ^{(n)}_\nu B_\mu ^{(n)},D_\mu ^{(n)}=_\mu +ig_nB_\mu ^{(n)}.$$
(37)
The Euclidean action at finite $`T`$ reads

$`S_M`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta }dx_4{\displaystyle }d^3x\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{N1}{}}}F_{\mu \nu }^{(n)}F_{\mu \nu }^{(n)}+`$ (38)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{N1}{}}}[\overline{D_\mu ^{(n)}\varphi _n}D_\mu ^{(n)}\varphi _n+V^{(n)}(|\varphi _n|)]\}.`$
We define $`V^{(n)}\overline{V}_{1/2}^{(n)}V_{1/2}^{(n)}`$ with

$$\overline{V}_{1/2}^{(n)}=\text{e}^{i\delta _n}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_M^3}{\overline{\varphi }_n},V_{1/2}^{(n)}=\text{e}^{i\delta _n}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_M^3}{\varphi _n}$$
(39)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_M`$ denotes a mass scale. According to our general approach (see Sec. 2) we ignore the gauge field sector when searching for zero-energy solutions of the scalar sector, which are periodic in $`x_4`$. The associated BPS equations read

$$_4\varphi _n=\overline{V}_{1/2}^{(n)},_{x_4}\overline{\varphi }_n=V_{1/2}^{(n)}.$$
(40)
For $`\delta _n\pi /2`$ in (39) Eqs. (40) are solved by the following periodic functions

$$\varphi _n(x_4)=\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_M^3}{2\pi nT}}\mathrm{exp}\left[2\pi niTx_4\right].$$
(41)
The choice of the winding number $`n`$ in (41) is in analogy to that in the electric case. For maximal symmetry breaking a minimal solution with unit increment of winding between neighboring SU(2) blocks was used in (3.1), and (41) is just an implementation of this prescription in the magnetic phase.

The nonfluctuating gauge fields of the ground state are zero-curvature solutions to the $`(N1)`$ Maxwell equations in the backgrounds (41)

$$_\mu F_{\mu \nu }^{(n)}=ig_n\left[\overline{D_\nu \varphi _n}\varphi _n\overline{\varphi }_nD_\nu \varphi _n\right].$$
(42)
We have

$$B_\nu ^{(n)}=\delta _{\nu 4}\frac{2\pi n}{g_n}T.$$
(43)
The solutions (43) imply the absence of the kinetic terms in (38), and consequently the action density reduces to the potential term

$$\underset{n=1}{\overset{N1}{}}V^{(n)}(|\varphi _n|)B_M(T)=\pi N(N1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_M^3T.$$
(44)
### 4.2 Thermal self-consistency and quasi-particles

The considerations concerning TSC are in close analogy to the tree-level approach to TSC in the electric phase. Again, non-Goldstone scalar modes are too heavy to be statistically relevant. We have

$$\frac{m_{s,n}}{T}\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}_{|\varphi _n|}^2V^{(n)}}/T=\sqrt{12}\pi n,(n=1,\mathrm{},N1).$$
(45)
So the only fluctuating fields are the $`(N1)`$ gauge fields. Their modes can be identified with noninteracting QPEs of temperature dependent masses $`m_{M,n}=|g_n\varphi _n|`$. Due to the Abelian nature of the theory there are no radiative corrections to these masses induced by the quatum fluctuations of gauge bosons. For simplicity we assume that all gauge bosons masses are given by the lowest value,

$$m_{M,n}m_M|g_{N1}\varphi _{N1}||g|\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_M^3}{2\pi (N1)T}}.$$
(46)
This approximation leads to an upper bound for the pressure exerted by the QPEs in the magnetic phase. Similar to the electric phase the total pressure $`p_M`$ and the total energy density $`\epsilon _M`$ are given as

$$p_M=p_M^{id}B_M(T),\epsilon _M=\epsilon _M^{id}+B_M(T)$$
(47)
We have defined

$`p_M^{id}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3(N1)T^4}{2\pi ^2}}P(a_M),\epsilon _M^{id}={\displaystyle \frac{3(N1)T^4}{2\pi ^2}}E(a_M),`$
$`a_M`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_M}{T}}.`$ (48)
The functions $`B_M(T)`$ and $`P(a)`$, $`E(a)`$ are defined in (44) and (3.2), respectively. TSC of the approach (47) is guaranteed if

$$\frac{p_M}{m_M}=\frac{p_M^{id}}{m_M}\frac{B_M}{m_M}=0.$$
(49)
Eqs. (47), (4.2), and (49) imply the following evolution equation

$$\frac{d\lambda _M}{da_M}=\frac{12}{(2\pi )^6N}\lambda _M^4a_MD(a_M),$$
(50)
where $`\lambda _MT/T_M`$, $`T_M\mathrm{\Lambda }_M/(2\pi )`$, and $`aD(a)`$ is defined in (3.2). Again, it has been assumed that $`g`$ depends on $`T`$ only implicitly via $`a_M`$. An inverted solution to (50), $`a_M(\lambda _M)`$, implies the following $`\lambda _M`$ dependence of the coupling $`|g|`$

$$|g|(\lambda _M)=\sqrt{\frac{(N1)\lambda _M^3}{4\pi ^2}}a_M(\lambda _M).$$
(51)
In analogy to the electric phase coupling constants $`g_n`$ diverge for $`TT_{MC}^c\lambda _M^cT_M`$. On a microscopic level, that is, for resolutions larger than $`T`$, the theory has Nielsen-Oleson vortices (NOVs)  for each of the $`(N1)`$ spontaneously broken U(1)s. For small couplings $`g_n1`$ these vortices behave like classical objects. It is argued in  that in the limit of strong coupling $`g_n1`$ the action of a typical NOV line (with a length comparable to the width) is $`g_n^2`$. This means that the energy carried by a typical NOV vanishes in this limit. At $`g_n1`$ NOVs are thus good candidates for CDOFs, and we expect that a transition to a phase occurs where they appear only collectively in condensed form.

## 5 Low temperature: Broken center symmetry

### 5.1 Model and ground-state structure

At $`T=T_{MC}^c`$ the remaining $`(N1)`$ gauge bosons $`B_\mu ^{(n)}`$ are infinitely heavy, and thus they decouple from the dynamics. Continuous gauge symmetry is reduced to a symmetry under the discrete subgroup of SU($`N`$): $`Z_N`$. The possibility has been discussed in  that gauge theories masquerade as theories with a discrete symmetry when viewed from a low-energy observers perspective. We identify the center phase with the confined phase of the underlying SU($`N`$) gauge theory.

We have argued in Sec. 4.2 that the termination of the magnetic phase is due to the condensation of NOVs. We introduce complex scalar fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$, ($`n=1,\mathrm{},N1`$), for the condensate of each vortex species and consider the following $`Z_N`$-symmetric action

$`S_C`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{x_4}}𝑑\tau {\displaystyle d^3x\frac{1}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\left\{\overline{_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }_n}_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }_n+v^{(n)}(\mathrm{\Phi }_n)\right\}}.`$ (52)
where $`v^{(n)}\overline{v_{1/2}^{(n)}}v_{1/2}^{(n)}`$. The functions $`v_{1/2}^{(n)}`$ and $`\overline{v_{1/2}^{(n)}}`$ are defined as

$$v_{1/2}^{(n)}=\mathrm{exp}[i\delta _n]\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_C^3}{\mathrm{\Phi }_n}\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{N1}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_C^{N3}}\right),\overline{v_{1/2}^{(n)}}=\mathrm{exp}[i\delta _n]\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_C^3}{\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}_n}\frac{\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}_n^{N1}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_C^{N3}}\right),$$
(53)
and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ denotes the confinement scale. A nontrivial $`Z_N`$ transformation acts by a multiplication of each field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ with one and the same unit root $`\mathrm{exp}[\frac{2\pi il}{N}]`$ ($`l=1,\mathrm{},N1`$). Notice that only the pole part survives in (53) for $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|<\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ and $`N\mathrm{}`$. Periodic solutions to the BPS equations

$$_{x_4}\mathrm{\Phi }_n=\overline{v^{(n)}}_{1/2},_{x_4}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}_n=v_{1/2}^{(n)}.$$
(54)
exist for $`\delta _n=\pm \frac{\pi }{2}`$. For $`N\mathrm{}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|<\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ they are given by the functions in (41). The action density on these solutions reads

$$2\times \underset{n=1}{\overset{N1}{}}v^{(n)}(|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|)B_C(T)=2\pi N(N1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_C^3T=p_C.$$
(55)
For $`N\mathrm{}`$ the modulus of the fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ is locked at $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|=\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ since the curvature of the potential at this point diverges, see (5.1). Along the ‘trench’ $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|=\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ the potential is zero. Solutions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ to (54) are no longer approximating the classical, Euclidean dynamics as in the cases with spontaneously broken continuous gauge symmetry, they are exact. We observe that the masses of possible scalar QPEs are large for $`N\mathrm{}`$

$$m_{\mathrm{\Phi }_n}\sqrt{_{|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|}^2v^{(n)}}=\{\begin{array}{c}\sqrt{12}\pi nT,(|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|<\mathrm{\Lambda }_C)\\ \sqrt{2}N\mathrm{\Lambda }_C,(|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|=\mathrm{\Lambda }_C)\end{array}.$$

These QPEs are thus thermodynamically irrelevant. Due to the exactness of the solutions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ it should not matter whether we calculate the energy density $`\epsilon _C`$ in the classical field theory on the one hand or by applying the thermodynamic relation

$$\epsilon _C=T\frac{dp_C(T)}{dT}p_C(T)$$
(56)
to the pressure $`p_C`$ defined in (55) on the other hand. Indeed, both approaches yield $`\epsilon _C=0`$ for the nontrivial situation $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|<\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$: Field theoretically due to the BPS saturation of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$, thermodynamically due to the linear dependence of $`p_C`$ on $`T`$. Notice that for $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|<\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ the thermodynamic pressure is negative while the energy density vanishes. This situation is resolved by a violent relaxation of the fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ to $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|=\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ where both pressure and energy density vanish.

Things are more complicated for $`N<\mathrm{}`$. In this case there still are periodic solutions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ to (54), see . However, the modulus $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|`$ now depends on $`x_4`$. This implies an $`x_4`$-dependence of the masses $`m_{\mathrm{\Phi }_n}\sqrt{|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|}v^{(n)}`$. As a consequence a thermodynamic quasi-particle treatment fails. A real-time, non-equilibrium approach is needed to describe the relaxation of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ to one of the minima $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_C\mathrm{exp}[\frac{2\pi il}{N}]`$. Notice that energy and pressure vanish at $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{}`$. It is worth mentioning that the potential $`_{n=1}^{N1}v^{(n)}`$ in (52) has no inflexion point for $`N<9`$. In any case we expect a rapid relaxation on a time scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }tm_\mathrm{\Phi }^1|_{\mathrm{\Phi }_n^{}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_C}{\sqrt{2}N}`$. This relaxation is accompanied by a violent (glue ball) particle production .

## 6 Matching the phases

Let us now relate the scales $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_E`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_M`$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ by imposing the Clausius-Clapeyron condition that temperature and pressure are continuous across the phase boundaries.

We first discuss the transition from the electric to the magnetic phase. At the critical temperature $`T_{EM}^c`$ the masses $`m_{E,\alpha }^{TLH}`$ of the $`N(N1)`$ TLH gauge bosons diverge since the coupling constant $`e`$ diverges. Thus these degrees of freedom decouple from the dynamics. Their contribution to the total pressure vanishes. Since the couplings $`g_n`$ are inversely proportional to the electric coupling $`e`$ and since the gauge boson masses in the magnetic phase are given as $`m_{M,n}=|g_n\varphi _n|`$ we conclude that very close to $`T_{EM}^c`$ there are $`(N1)`$ massless gauge bosons on either side of the transition point. This is an idealization since radiative corrections do generate sizable masses for the TLM modes in the electric phase, see the discussion in Sec. 3.3. For simplicity we assume tree-level behavior in the following 444On the magnetic side gauge bosons start out massless. Thus there are 2 polarizations for $`TT_{MC}^c`$. A smooth interpolation to a situation at lower $`T`$, where all gauge bosons are sufficiently massive to carry 3 polarizations, must be operative.. The condition

$$p_E(T_{EM}^c)=p_M(T_{EM}^c)$$
(57)
implies the following relation between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_E`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_M`$

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_E=\mathrm{\Lambda }_M\{\begin{array}{c}\left(16\frac{N1}{N+2}\right)^{1/3},(\text{even}N)\\ \left(16\frac{N}{N+1}\right)^{1/3},(\text{odd}N)\end{array}.$$

For the transition from the magnetic to the center symmetric phase at $`T_{MC}^c`$ no QPEs have to be considered if $`N`$ is sufficiently large. The reasons are diverging masses $`m_{M,n}`$ of the gauge bosons for $`TT_{MC}^c`$ and the strong Boltzmann suppression of scalar excitations in the center symmetric phase, see (5.1). For large $`N`$ the condition

$$p_M(T_{MC}^c)=p_C(T_{MC}^c)$$
(58)
implies that

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_M=2^{1/3}\mathrm{\Lambda }_C.$$
(59)
Eqs. (6) and (59) express the fact that there is only one freely adjustable mass scale describing the gauge theory cascade.

## 7 Numerical demonstration of the cascade

In this section we numerically solve the evolution equations (3.2) and (50) to demonstrate exemplarily the behavior which we relied upon in the discussions of the previous sections. In order to have some confidence in (59), which only at large $`N`$ is a good approximation, we set $`N=10`$ in the following. For small values of $`N`$, as they occur in the SU($`N`$) factors of the standard model, in technicolor models, and GUTs, the matching between the magnetic and the center phases can, in principle, be performed numerically.

We start with a calculation of the running QPE mass in the electric phase. For $`N=10`$ the evolution equation (3.2) takes the following form

$$\frac{d\lambda _E}{da_E^{TLH}}=\frac{9}{(2\pi )^6}\lambda _E^4a_E^{TLH}D(a_E^{TLH}).$$
(60)
We assume that $`a_E^{TLH}=0`$ at the initial temperature $`T_E^i=\frac{\lambda _E(a_E^{TLH}=0)}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Lambda }_E`$. Fig. 4 shows a numerical solution to (60) for $`\lambda _E(0)=100`$.

Keeping in mind the tree-level relation (3.2), we notice that the coupling $`e`$ grows strong ($`|e|>1`$) well before saturation. This saturation occurs at $`\lambda _E^c10`$, see Fig. 4. The (weak) dependence on the initial conditions of the critical temperature $`T_{EM}^c=\frac{\lambda _E^c}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Lambda }_E`$ is demonstrated in Fig. 5.

Let us now discuss the magnetic phase. For $`N=10`$ the evolution equation (50) takes the following form

$$\frac{d\lambda _M}{da_M}=\frac{6}{5}\frac{1}{(2\pi )^6}\lambda _M^4a_MD(a_M).$$
(61)
According to (6) the initial value $`\lambda _M(0)`$ is related to the critical value $`\lambda _E^c`$ as

$$\lambda _M(0)=\lambda _E^c\{\begin{array}{c}\left(16\frac{N1}{N+2}\right)^{1/3},(\text{even}N)\\ \left(16\frac{N}{N+1}\right)^{1/3},(\text{odd}N)\end{array}$$

For $`N=10`$ this leads to

$$\lambda _M(0)=(12)^{1/3}\lambda _E^c2.3\lambda _E^c.$$
(62)
Fig. 5 suggests a value of $`\lambda _E^c=10`$. Using (62) we may take $`\lambda _M(0)=23`$ as an initial value for the evolution of $`\lambda _M`$. The corresponding solution to (61) is shown in Fig. 5. Notice the smallness of the temperature range belonging to the magnetic phase: saturation of $`\lambda _M`$ (or the transition to the center phase) occurs at about $`T_{MC}^c\frac{17}{23}T_{EM}^c0.74T_{EM}^c`$! Fig. 6 suggests the following value for $`\lambda _M^c`$

$$\lambda _M^c=17=2\pi \frac{T_{MC}^c}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_M}.$$
(63)
Finally, by virtue of (59) and (63) the critical temperature $`T_{MC}^c`$ can be expressed in terms of the confinement scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ as

$$T_{MC}^c3.4\mathrm{\Lambda }_C,(N=10).$$
(64)
At the temperatures $`T_C^n=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_C}{2\pi n}`$ the field moduli $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|`$ would get locked in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$. The lowest value $`T_C^1=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_C}{2\pi }`$ is much smaller than $`T_{MC}^c`$. According to (41) we have $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n|\mathrm{\Lambda }_C`$ for $`TT^1`$. Thus the potential is dominated by its pole parts, and the use of the matching relation (59) is consistent.

## 8 Summary and outlook

The results of SU($`N`$) lattice gauge theory simulations of the thermodynamic potentials indicate a considerable deviation from the ideal-gas behavior even for temperatures larger than $`T_c^{dec}`$ . These effects are not captured by naive, unsummed thermal perturbation theory which by poor convergence predicts its own breakdown for experimentally feasible temperatures . The purpose of this paper was to construct an alternative approach to hot SU($`N`$) gauge dynamics. It is based on the assumption that away from a phase transition the bulk of the quantum interaction in the system is residing in the collective properties of condensed low-energy degrees of freedom. Incomplete classical dynamics was assumed to describe this condensed part. This assumption turned out to be self-consistent. To satisfy in addition the constraints imposed by thermodynamic equilibrium, namely zero gauge curvature and coordinate independent pressure of the ground state, $`\varphi ^2`$-type potentials for the Higgs-field VEVs $`\{\varphi \}`$ were required.

Due to the spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking, which is induced by the condensed part, (some of) the statistically fluctuating degrees of freedom become quasi-particle excitations at tree-level. The very existence of quasi-particles was necessary for the thermodynamic self-consistency of our approach. The nonperturbative evolution of the gauge coupling(s) with temperature is a consequence of thermodynamic self-consistency. This evolution is from weak to strong coupling as temperature decreases. Generically, the situation at very large coupling(s) is as follows: On the one hand, topological defects, which behave quasi-classically at small coupling(s), become quasi-massless, and thus they condense. Tree-level massless modes pick up sizable masses due to radiative corrections. On the other hand, tree-level quasi-particles acquire a large masses, they decouple from the dynamics. As a result, a transition to a phase with reduced (gauge) symmetry occurs. This process may repeat itself in an underlying theory with a large non-Abelian gauge symmetry. In a final transition at low temperature the system reaches a phase with a (spontaneously broken) discrete symmetry.

Specifically, for the SU($`N`$) pure gauge theory considered in this paper the system starts out in an ’electric’ phase. In this phase the ground state is macroscopically described by a classical adjoint Higgs field which may consist of condensed calorons. It was observed in Sec. 3.1 that the associated ground-state solution is in agreement with asymptotic freedom; the Higgs field ‘melts’ with increasing temperature. In the electric phase the evolution with decreasing temperature runs into a transition to a ’magnetic’ phase. This transition reduces the gauge symmetry from SU($`N`$) to U(1)N-1 at some critical temperature $`T_{EM}^c`$. In the new phase the ground state is made of condensed magnetic monopoles. In a final transition at $`T_{MC}^c<T_{EM}^c`$ the system condenses magnetic vortices. This reduces the continuous gauge symmetry U(1)N-1 to the discrete symmetry ZN. This last phase is the confining one, see also  for lattice investigations of the SU(2) case.

The present paper demonstrates that the description of hot SU($`N`$) gauge dynamics in terms of an (incomplete) classical ground-state solution and noninteracting quasi-particles can be useful. The deviation from the Stefan-Boltzmann limit of the thermodynamic pressure measured on the lattice at large temperature is qualitatively explained. A negative equation of state is inevitable for temperatures close to $`T_{MC}^c`$ which can explain vacuum energy on cosmological scales both in the very early universe and today. In the former case an explanation of the seeding of large-scale structure during inflation requires an additional light field – the curvaton . This field is generated dynamically if the underlying gauge theory has fundamentally charged, chiral fermions . Looking at the accelerated expansion of todays universe in the light of the present paper, one would conclude that the near coincidence of the vacuum and dark matter energy density is due to a gauge theory that is close to a transition to its discrete-symmetry phase.

Much remains to be done to adapt strategy of the present paper to realistic low-energy theories such as QCD. In the following we list three points which seem to be most urgent.

* Finite $`N`$ center-phase transition: The transition to the center phase and the subsequent evolution towards one of the minima of the potential at finite $`N`$ is not accessible to a thermodynamic treatment. Real-time calculations along the lines of refs.  are needed to compute the rates of particle number creation in the early stages of this transition and the late-time behavior of the confining phase of the system.
* Radiatively induced masses for TLM modes: In the end of the electric phase the gauge-coupling modulus $`|e|`$ is large and quantum effects are explicit. The TLH gauge bosons acquire large masses and thus cease to be statistically relevant. Their quantum fluctuations induce sizable masses for the TLM gauge bosons which are expanded in orders of $`e^2`$. An all-loop orders result for the lowest-order, $`(e^2)^0`$, would be desirable.
* Inclusion of fundamentally charged fermions: It is not possible to consistently define a local quantum theory of propagating electric and magnetic charges. In our approach, however, magnetic monopoles are either decoupled due to large masses (weakly coupled regime of electric phase), or they appear in condensed form without collective excitations (magnetic phase). The situation may be problematic only for $`TT_{EM}^c`$ where for a short period magnetic monopoles may be explicit degrees of freedom. Thus for a large range of temperatures we can not see a principle objection against the inclusion of fundamental, chiral fermions into our approach. There are, however, a number of open questions. For example, gauge invariance puts no strong constraint on the way how quarks couple to the respective condensates. The simplest coupling would be of the Yukawa-type. The thermodynamic self-consistency of the approach then would lead to a coupled set of evolution equations. Would chiral symmetry breaking and the dynamical decoupling of isolated quarks simply be the statement that these Yukawa couplings diverge during the transition to the center phase?

## Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank J. Berges, H. Gies, and Z. Tavartkiladze for useful conversations.