Unquenching the infrared sector of QCD

Abstract

We discuss the recent progress made in understanding how some fundamental results valid in the quenched infrared sector of non-Abelian Yang-Mills theories generalize to the unquenched case. In particular, we derive in the continuum an equation that allows to predict how the momentum dependence of the quenched gluon propagator is affected by the presence of a small number of dynamical quarks. In addition, we present the most recent lattice simulations of the (Landau gauge) gluon and ghost two-point sector obtained using gauge field configurations with two light and two light plus two heavy twisted-mass quark flavors. A comparison between the results obtained by these two complementary methods is then carried out.