Splitting the gluon?

In the strongly correlated environment of high-temperature cuprate superconductors, the spin and charge degrees of freedom of an electron seem to separate from each other. A similar phenomenon may be present in the strong coupling phase of Yang-Mills theories, where a separation between the color charge and the spin of a gluon could play a role in a mass-gap formation. Here we study the phase structure of a decomposed SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in a mean-field approximation, by inspecting quantum fluctuations in the condensate which is formed by the color-charge component of the gluon field. Our results suggest that the decomposed theory has an involved phase structure. In particular, there appears to be a phase which is quite reminiscent of the superconducting phase in cuprates. We also find evidence that this phase is separated from the asymptotically-free theory by an intermediate pseudogap phase. © 2005 The American Physical Society.