We point out the existence of a non-perturbative exact nilpotent BRST symmetry for the Gribov-Zwanziger action in the Landau gauge. We then put forward a manifestly BRST invariant resolution of the Gribov gauge fixing ambiguity in the linear covariant gauge.

We present a local setup for the recently introduced BRST-invariant formulation of Yang-Mills theories for linear covariant gauges that takes into account the existence of gauge copies \`a la Gribov and Zwanziger. Through the convenient use of auxiliary fields, including one of the Stueckelberg type, it is shown that both the action and the associated nilpotent BRST operator can be put in local form. Direct consequences of this fully local and BRST-symmetric framework are drawn from its Ward identities: (i) an exact prediction for the longitudinal part of the gluon propagator in linear covariant gauges that is compatible with recent lattice results and (ii) a proof of the gauge-parameter independence of all correlation functions of local BRST-invariant operators

In this paper, we discuss the gluon propagator in the linear covariant gauges in D = 2, 3, 4 Euclidean dimensions. Nonperturbative effects are taken into account via the so-called refined Gribov-Zwanziger framework. We point out that, as in the Landau and maximal Abelian gauges, for D = 3, 4, the gluon propagator displays a massive (decoupling) behavior, while for D = 2, a scaling one emerges. All results are discussed in a setup that respects the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetry, through a recently introduced nonperturbative BRST transformation. We also propose a minimizing functional that could be used to construct a lattice version of our nonperturbative definition of the linear covariant gauge

Restricting the functional integral to the Gribov region Ω leads to a deep modification of the behavior of Euclidean Yang-Mills theories in the infrared region. For example, a gluon propagator of the Gribov type, k 2 k 4 +γ 4 , can be viewed as a propagating pair of unphysical modes, called here i-particles, with complex masses ±iγ 2 . From this viewpoint, gluons are unphysical and one can see them as being confined. We introduce a simple toy model describing how a suitable set of composite operators can be constructed out of i-particles whose correlation functions exhibit only real branch cuts, with associated positive spectral density. These composite operators can thus be called physical and are the toy analogy of glueballs in the Gribov-Zwanziger theory.

We set up an infrared-based moment problem to obtain estimates of the masses of the scalar, pseudoscalar, and tensor glueballs in Euclidean Yang-Mills theories using the refined Gribov-Zwanziger (RGZ) version of the Landau gauge, which takes into account nonperturbative physics related to gauge copies. Employing lattice input for the mass scales of the RGZ gluon propagator, the lowest order moment problem approximation gives the values m(0++) ≈ 1.96 GeV, m(2++) ≈ 2.04 GeV, and m(0-+) ≈ 2.19 GeV in the SU(3) case, all within a 20% range of the corresponding lattice values. We also recover the mass hierarchy m(0++) < m(2++) < m(0-+).