We study the gauge sector of Minimal Walking Technicolor, which is an SU(2) gauge theory with n f = 2 flavors of Wilson fermions in the adjoint representation. Numerical simulations are performed on lattices Nt × N 3 s , with Ns ranging from 8 to 16 and Nt = 2Ns, at fixed β = 2.25, and varying the fermion bare mass m0, so that our numerical results cover the full range of fermion masses from the quenched region to the chiral limit. We present results for the string tension and the glueball spectrum. A comparison of mesonic and gluonic observables leads to the conclusion that the infrared dynamics is given by an SU(2) pure Yang-Mills theory with a typical energy scale for the spectrum sliding to zero with the fermion mass. The typical mesonic mass scale is proportional to, and much larger than this gluonic scale. Our findings are compatible with a scenario in which the massless theory is conformal in the infrared. An analysis of the scaling of the string tension with the fermion mass towards the massless limit allows us to extract the chiral condensate anomalous dimension γ * , which is found to be γ * = 0.22 ± 0.06.

We explore some consequences of the crossing symmetry for defect conformal field theories, focusing on codimension one defects like flat boundaries or interfaces. We study surface transitions of the 3d Ising and other O(N ) models through numerical solutions to the crossing equations with the method of determinants. In the extraordinary transition, where the low-lying spectrum of the surface operators is known, we use the bootstrap equations to obtain information on the bulk spectrum of the theory. In the ordinary transition the knowledge of the low-lying bulk spectrum allows to calculate the scale dimension of the relevant surface operator, which compares well with known results of two-loop calculations in 3d. Estimates of various OPE coefficients are also obtained. We also analyze in 4-dimensions the renormalization group interface between the O(N ) model and the free theory and check numerically the results in 3d.

The lowest-lying glueball masses are computed in SU($N$) gauge theory on a spacetime lattice for constant value of the lattice spacing $a$ and for $N$ ranging from 3 to 8. The lattice spacing is fixed using the deconfinement temperature at temporal extension of the lattice $N_T = 6$. The calculation is conducted employing in each channel a variational ansatz performed on a large basis of operators that includes also torelon and (for the lightest states) scattering trial functions. This basis is constructed using an automatic algorithm that allows us to build operators of any size and shape in any irreducible representation of the cubic group. A good signal is extracted for the ground state and the first excitation in several symmetry channels. It is shown that all the observed states are well described by their large $N$ values, with modest ${\cal O}(1/N^2)$ corrections. In addition spurious states are identified that couple to torelon and scattering operators. As a byproduct of our calculation, the critical couplings for the deconfinement phase transition for N=5 and N=7 and temporal extension of the lattice $N_T=6$ are determined.Comment: 1+36 pages, 22 tables, 21 figures. Typos corrected, conclusions unchanged, matches the published versio

We investigate the structure and the novel emerging features of the mesonic nonsinglet spectrum of the minimal walking technicolor theory. Precision measurements in the nonsinglet pseudoscalar and vector channels are compared to the expectations for an IR-conformal field theory and a QCD-like theory. Our results favor a scenario in which minimal walking technicolor is (almost) conformal in the infrared, while spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking seems less plausible.

We use a variational technique to study heavy glueballs on gauge configurations generated with 2+1 flavours of ASQTAD improved staggered fermions. The variational technique includes glueball scattering states. The measurements were made using 2150 configurations at 0.092 fm with a pion mass of 360 MeV. We report masses for 10 glueball states. We discuss the prospects for unquenched lattice QCD calculations of the oddballs.Comment: 19 pages, 4 tables and 8 figures. One figure added. Now matches the published versio