Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and confinement with an infrared-vanishing gluon propagator?

Abstract

We study a model Dyson-Schwinger equation for the quark propagator closed using an {\it Ansatz} for the gluon propagator of the form \mbox{$D(q)\sim q^2/[(q^2{)}^2+b^4]$} and two {\it Ansätze} for the quark-gluon vertex: the minimal Ball-Chiu and the modified form suggested by Curtis and Pennington. Using the quark condensate as an order parameter, we find that there is a critical value of $b=b_c$ such that the model does not support dynamical chiral symmetry breaking for $b>b_c$. We discuss and apply a confinement test which suggests that, for all values of $b$, the quark propagator in the model {\bf is not} confining. Together these results suggest that this Ansatz for the gluon propagator is inadequate as a model since it does not yield the expected behaviour of QCD.

Comments: 21 Pages including 4 PostScript figures uuencoded at the end of the file. Replacement: slight changes of wording and emphasis. ADP-93-215/T133, ANL-PHY-7599-TH-93, FSU-SCRI-93-108, REVTEX 3.0