Theta Vacua, Confinement and the Continuum Limit

Abstract

We investigate the dependence of the CP^3 model and of the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory on the vacuum angle theta. The CP^3 model exhibits a first order deconfining phase transition in theta. The critical value of theta runs from pi in the strong coupling limit towards zero as beta is taken to infinity. Qualitatively the same behavior is found in the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. We discuss the renormalization group trajectories. Only the line with theta = 0 allows the cut-off to go to infinity, while the lines with theta > 0 end on the line of first order phase transitions. Thus theta is forced to zero in the continuum limit.