Abstract
We put forward the Axionic String Ansatz (ASA), which provides a unified description for the worldsheet dynamics of confining strings in pure Yang-Mills theory both in D = 3 and D = 4 space-time dimensions. The ASA is motivated by the excitation spectrum of long confining strings, as measured on a lattice, and by recently constructed integrable axionic non-critical string models. According to the ASA, pure gluodynamics in 3D is described by a non-critical bosonic string theory without any extra local worldsheet degrees of freedom. We argue that this assumption fixes the set of quantum numbers (spins, P-and C-parities) of almost all glueball states. We confront the resulting predictions with the properties of approximately 12 + 22 + 32 + 52 = 39 lightest glueball states measured on a lattice and find a good agreement. On the other hand, the spectrum of low lying glueballs in 4D gluodynamics suggests the presence of a massive pseudoscalar mode on the string worldsheet, in agreement with the ASA and lattice data for long strings.
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Dubovsky, S., Hernández-Chifflet, G. Yang-Mills glueballs as closed bosonic strings. J. High Energ. Phys. 2017, 22 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2017)022
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2017)022