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Analytical functions for the propagators of QCD, including a set of chiral quarks, are derived by a one-loop massive expansion in the Landau gauge, deep in the infrared. By analytic continuation, the spectral functions are studied in Minkowski space, yielding a direct proof of positivity violation and confinement from first principles.The dynamical breaking of chiral symmetry is described on the same footing of gluon mass generation, providing a unified picture. While dealing with the exact Lagrangian, the expansion is based on massive free-particle propagators, is safe in the infrared and is equivalent to the standard perturbation theory in the UV. By dimensional regularization, all diverging mass terms cancel exactly without including mass counterterms that would spoil the gauge and chiral symmetry of the Lagrangian. Universal scaling properties are predicted for the inverse dressing functions and shown to be satisfied by the lattice data. Complex conjugated poles are found for the gluon propagator, in agreement with the i-particle scenario.

Explicit analytical expressions are derived for the gluon propagator in a generic linear covariant R ξ gauge, by a screened massive expansion for the exact Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian of pure Yang-Mills theory. At one-loop, if the gauge invariance of the pole structure is enforced, the gluon dressing function is entirely and uniquely determined, without any free parameter or external input. The gluon propagator is found finite in the IR for any ξ, with a slight decrease of its limit value when going from the Landau gauge (ξ ¼ 0) toward the Feynman gauge (ξ ¼ 1). An excellent agreement is found with the lattice in the range 0 < ξ < 0.5 where the data are available.

Within a BCS-type mean-field approach to the extended Hubbard model, a nontrivial dependence of Tc on the hole content per unit CuO2 is recovered, in good agreement with the celebrated nonmonotonic universal behaviour at normal pressure. Evaluation of Tc at higher pressures is then made possible by the introduction of an explicit dependence of the tight-binding band and of the carrier concentration on pressure P . Comparison with the known experimental data for underdoped Bi2212 allows to single out an 'intrinsic' contribution to dTc/dP from that due to the carrier concentration, and provides a remarkable estimate of the dependence of the inter-site coupling strength on the lattice scale.

A variational method is discussed, extending the Gaussian effective potential to higher orders. The single variational parameter is replaced by trial unknown two-point functions, with infinite variational parameters to be optimized by the solution of a set of integral equations. These stationary conditions are derived by the self-energy without having to write the effective potential, making use of a general relation between self-energy and functional derivatives of the potential. This connection is proven to any order and verified up to second order by an explicit calculation for the scalar theory. Among several variational strategies, the methods of minimal sensitivity and of minimal variance are discussed in some detail. For the scalar theory, at variance with other post-Gaussian approaches, the pole of the second-order propagator is shown to satisfy the simple first-order gap equation that seems to be more robust than expected. By the method of minimal variance, nontrivial results are found for gauge theories containing fermions, where the first-order Gaussian approximation is known to be useless.Comment: Last version: minor changes in the text, and reference updat

A variational method is studied based on the minimum of energy variance. The method is tested on exactly soluble problems in quantum mechanics, and is shown to be a useful tool whenever the properties of states are more relevant than the eigenvalues. In quantum field theory the method provides a consistent second-order extension to the Gaussian effective potential.

The low-energy limit of pure Yang-Mills SU (3) gauge theory is studied in Feynman gauge by the method of stationary variance, a genuine second-order variational method that is suited to deal with the minimal coupling of fermions in gauge theories. In terms of standard irreducible graphs, the stationary equations are written as a set of coupled non-linear integral equations for the gluon and ghost propagators. A physically sensible solution is found for any strength of the coupling. The gluon propagator is finite in the infrared, with a dynamical mass that decreases as a power at high energies. At variance with some recent findings in Feynman gauge, the ghost dressing function does not vanish in the infrared limit and a decoupling scenario emerges as recently reported for the Landau gauge.

The possible existence of Higgs-Higgs bound states in the Higgs sector of the Standard Model is explored using the |hh + |hhh variational ansatz of Di Leo and Darewych. The resulting integral equations can be decoupled exactly, yielding a one-dimensional integral equation, solved numerically. We thereby avoid the extra approximations employed by Di Leo and Darewych, and we find a qualitatively different mass renormalization. Within the conventional scenario, where a not-too-large cutoff is invoked to avoid "triviality," we find, as usual, an upperbound on the Higgs mass. Bound-state solutions are only found in the very strong coupling regime, but at the same time a relatively small physical mass is required as a consequence of renormalization.