We investigate and compute spectral sums of the Wilson lattice Dirac operator for quenched SU (3) gauge theory. It is demonstrated that there exist sums which serve as order parameters for the confinementdeconfinement phase transition and get their main contribution from the IR end of the spectrum. They are approximately proportional to the Polyakov loop. In contrast to earlier studied spectral sums some of them are expected to have a well-defined continuum limit.

We study supersymmetric quantum mechanics with the functional RG formulated in terms of an exact and manifestly off-shell supersymmetric flow equation for the effective action. We solve the flow equation nonperturbatively in a systematic supercovariant derivative expansion and concentrate on systems with unbroken supersymmetry. Already at next-to-leading order, the energy of the first excited state for convex potentials is accurately determined within a 1% error for a wide range of couplings including deeply nonperturbative regimes.

Spectral sums of the Dirac-Wilson operator and their relation to the Polyakov loop are thoroughly investigated. The approach by Gattringer is generalized to mode sums which reconstruct the Polyakov loop locally. This opens the possibility to study the mode sum approximation to the Polyakov loop correlator. The approach is re-derived for the ab initio continuum formulation of Yang-Mills theories, and the convergence of the mode sum is studied in detail. The mode sums are then explicitly calculated for the Schwinger model and SU(2) gauge theory in a homogeneous background field. Using SU(2) lattice gauge theory, the IR dominated mode sums are considered and the mode sum approximation to the static quark anti-quark potential is obtained numerically. We find a good agreement between the mode sum approximation and the static potential at large distances for the confinement and the high temperature plasma phase.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, typos corrected, references added, final version to appear in PR

Supersymmetric renormalization group (RG) flow equations for the effective superpotential of the three-dimensional Wess-Zumino model are derived at zero and non-zero temperature. This model with fermions and bosons interacting via a Yukawa term possesses a supersymmetric analogue of the Wilson-Fisher fixed-point. At zero temperature we determine the phase-transition line in coupling-constant space separating the supersymmetric from the nonsupersymmetric phase. At finite temperature we encounter dimensional reduction from 3 to 2 dimensions in the infrared regime. We determine the finite-temperature phase diagram for the restoration of the global 2-symmetry and show that for temperatures above the 2 phase-transition the pressure obeys the Stefan-Boltzmann law of a gas of massless bosons in 2 + 1 dimensions.

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