Probing center vortices and deconfinement in SU(2) lattice gauge theory with persistent homology

Sale, Nicholas; Lucini, Biagio; Giansiracusa, Jeffrey

Abstract

We investigate the use of persistent homology, a tool from topological data analysis, as a means to detect and quantitatively describe center vortices in SU(2) lattice gauge theory in a gaugeinvariant manner. We provide evidence for the sensitivity of our method to vortices by detecting a vortex explicitly inserted using twisted boundary conditions in the deconfined phase. This inspires the definition of a new phase indicator for the deconfinement phase transition. We also construct a phase indicator without reference to twisted boundary conditions using a simple k-nearest neighbours classifier. Finite-size scaling analyses of both persistence-based indicators yield accurate estimates of the critical β and critical exponent of correlation length ν of the deconfinement phase transition.

Citation

Sale, N., Lucini, B., & Giansiracusa, J. (2023). Probing center vortices and deconfinement in SU(2) lattice gauge theory with persistent homology. Physical Review D, 107(3), Article 034501. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.107.034501

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 20, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 7, 2023
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 13, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: May 15, 2023
• Journal: Physical Review D
• Print ISSN: 1550-7998
• Electronic ISSN: 1550-2368
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 107
• Issue: 3
• Article Number: 034501
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.107.034501