Speaker: Ron Nissim (MIT)

Title: Area Law and Mass Gap for Lattice Yang-Mills at Strong Coupling

Abstract: 

This talk is based on three recent papers, including two with Scott Sheffield and Sky Cao, on lattice Yang-Mills theory. These papers extend the regime of parameter for which two properties of lattice Yang-Mills theory known as mass gap and area law hold to the 't Hooft regime. As Yang-Mills theory is a mathematical model for particle physics, these properties (mass gap and area law) have real physical implications such as quark confinement. The goal of the talk will be to explain the mechanisms which make the 't Hooft regime tractable from two points of view. One point of view is based on the master loop equation and string trajectories which can be seen as a surface exploration, while the other point of view is based on pairing the recent Langevin dynamic approach with classical arguments from the 70s and 80s. Time permitting, I will also discuss work in preparation on deconfinement (as defined via Wilson loops) for Yang-Mills models with broken center symmetry such as when the gauge group has trivial center, or when a Higgs field is added to the model.