Speaker
Claudio Bonati
(Pisa University)
Description
Universal features of second order phase phase transitions can be investigated by studying the phi-to-the-fourth field theory with the corresponding global symmetry breaking pattern. When gauge symmetries are present, the same technique is usually applied to a gauge invariant order parameter field, as in the Pisarski-Wilczek analysis of the QCD chiral phase transition. Gauge fields are thus assumed to be irrelevant in the effective critical model, a fact that is however far from trivial. We will investigate the validity of this approach using three dimensional scalar lattice models with non-abelian global and local symmetries, for which critical exponents and scaling functions can be numerically determined with high accuracy.
Primary authors
Claudio Bonati
(Pisa University)
Andrea Pelissetto
(Sapienza University (Rome))
Ettore Vicari
(Pisa University )
