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Perturbative approach to the infrared gluon propagator in the maximal Abelian gauge

D. M. van Egmond1,*, L. C. Ferreira2,†, A. D. Pereira3,‡, G. Peruzzo3,4,§, and S. P. Sorella5,∥

  • *Contact author: duifjemaria@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: luigicferreira@gmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: adpjunior@id.uff.br
  • §Contact author: gperuzzofisica@gmail.com
  • ∥Contact author: silvio.sorella@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 014045 – Published 21 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/kqkw-jshk

Abstract

The inclusion of a masslike term for the gluon in Yang-Mills theories quantized in the Landau gauge has proven to be an effective way of reproducing lattice results for gauge-fixed correlation functions within perturbative computations. Since those quantities are gauge dependent, it is natural to question how general this prescription is for describing the infrared behavior of gluon and Faddeev-Popov ghost propagators in different gauges. In this work, we provide a systematic investigation of this issue in the maximal Abelian gauge, which cannot be deformed into the Landau gauge and has been investigated in gauge-fixed lattice simulations. We compute the one-loop non-Abelian and diagonal gluon propagators and perform fits to lattice data in the case of SU(2). Our results show that the transverse component of the non-Abelian gluon propagator as well as the diagonal gluon propagator, are in good agreement with lattice data in the infrared.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 014045– Published 21 July, 2026
  • Received 27 March 2026
  • Accepted 12 June 2026
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