Are Lattice Gauge Theories Magnets in Disguise?
Michael Grady, Department of Physics , SUNY Fredonia It has long been thought that magnetic spin theories, which serve as models of ordinary ferromagnets, and lattice gauge theories, which model the strong nuclear interactions holding the quarks together inside the nucleus are quite different. The fields are similar, but the interactions in the first have a global symmetry and in the latter a local symmetry. In the magnetic models the global symmetry is always spontaneously broken, i.e. magnetized, at low temperatures in three or more dimensions. However, local symmetries cannot break spontaneously, so it is thought that for the gauge theories there is no part of the original gauge symmetry broken at weak coupling. However, I have found that if the gauge is fixed to Coulomb Gauge, which has the effect of turning the local symmetry into a partially global symmetry, then this remaining remnant symmetry does break spontaneously, and the lattice gauge theory acts much like an ordinary magn
