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Asymptotic freedom and massive glueballs in a qubit-regularized SU(2) gauge theory

Rui Xian Siew1,*, Shailesh Chandrasekharan1,†, and Tanmoy Bhattacharya2,‡

  • *Contact author: ruixian.siew@duke.edu
  • †Contact author: sch27@duke.edu
  • ‡Contact author: tanmoy@lanl.gov
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 114522 – Published 22 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2cy4-cp7f

Abstract

We argue that a simple qubit-regularized SU(2) lattice gauge theory on a plaquette chain serves as a pseudo–one-dimensional toy model for Yang-Mills theory in three spatial dimensions. We map the chain Hamiltonian to the transverse field Ising model in a uniform magnetic field and demonstrate that it can be tuned to a continuum limit in which the short-distance physics is governed by the asymptotically free Ising conformal field theory describing free Majorana fermions, while the long-distance regime contains massive excitations of the E8 quantum field theory that can be interpreted as one-dimensional analogs of glueballs. Furthermore, we find σ/m1=0.249(1) where σ is the string tension between two static quarks and m1 is the mass of the lightest glueball.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 114522– Published 22 June, 2026
  • Received 20 January 2026
  • Accepted 21 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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