A nonperturbative microscopic theory of Hamiltonian lattice gauge systems

Lattice gauge field theory was first developed by Wilson1 in Euclidean space-time to tackle the problem of quark confinement for the strong interaction. Independently, the equivalent Hamiltonian models were formulated by Kogut and Susskind.2 The lattice supplies an ultra-violet cut-off which regularizes the divergency often encountered in continuum field theory. One of the key advantages of lattice gauge theory clearly lies in the fact that the confining strong-coupling limit provides a natural basis from which one can apply such techniques as perturbation theory and other many-body theory approximations. The fact that the physical continuum limit is achieved in the weak-coupling limit provides a stringent test for any technique applied to lattice gauge theory.