The lattice and quantized Yang-Mills theory

Abstract

Quantized Yang-Mills fields lie at the heart of our understanding of the strong nuclear force. To understand the theory at low energies, we must work in the strong coupling regime. The primary technique for this is the lattice. While basically an ultraviolet regulator, the lattice avoids the use of a perturbative expansion. I discuss the historical circumstances that drove us to this approach, which has had immense success, convincingly demonstrating quark confinement and obtaining crucial properties of the strong interactions from first principles.

13 pages, 3 figures. Contribution to the Conference on 60 Years of Yang-Mills Gauge Field Theories, 25-28 May 2015. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:hep-lat/0406007, arXiv:hep-lat/0306024, arXiv:hep-lat/0010047