Coupled Cluster Methods in Lattice Gauge Theory

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. The many body coupled cluster method is applied to Hamiltonian pure lattice gauge theories. The vacuum wavefunction is written as the exponential of a single sum over the lattice of clusters of gauge invariant operators at fixed relative orientation and separation, generating excitations of the bare vacuum. The basic approximation scheme involves a truncation according to geometrical size on the lattice of the clusters in the wavefunction. For a wavefunction including clusters up to a given size, all larger clusters generated in the Schrodinger equation are discarded. The general formalism is first given, including that for excited states. Two possible procedures for discarding clusters are considered. The first involves discarding clusters describing excitations of the bare vacuum which are larger than those in the given wavefunction. The second involves rearranging the clusters so that they describe fluctuations of the gauge invariant excitations about their self-consistently calculated expectation values, and then discarding fluctuations larger then those in the given wavefunction. The coupled cluster method is applied to the Z_2 and Su(2) models in 2 + 1D. For the Z_2 model, the first procedure gives poor results, while the second gives wavefunctions which explicitly display a phase transition with critical couplings in good agreement with those obtained by other methods. For the SU(2) model, the first procedure also gives poor results, while the second gives vacuum wavefunctions valid at all couplings. The general properties of the wavefunctions at weak coupling are discussed. Approximations with clusters spanning up to four plaquettes are considered. Excited states are calculated, yielding mass gaps with fair scaling properties. Insight is obtained into the form of the wavefunctions at all couplings.