Abstract: In Quantum Chromodynamics, the Schwinger mechanism endows the gluons with an effective mass through the dynamical formation of massless bound-state poles that are longitudinally coupled. The presence of these poles affects profoundly the infrared properties of the interaction vertices, inducing crucial modifications to their fundamental Ward identities. Within this general framework, we present a detailed derivation of the non-Abelian Ward identity obeyed by the pole-free part of the three-gluon vertex in the softgluon limit, and determine the smoking-gun displacement that the onset of the Schwinger mechanism produces to the standard result. Quite importantly, the quantity that describes this distinctive feature coincides formally with the bound-state wave function that controls the massless pole formation. Consequently, this signal may be computed in two independent ways: by solving an approximate version of the pertinent BetheSalpeter integral equation, or by appropriately combining the elements that enter in the aforementioned Ward identity. For the implementation of both methods we employ two- and three-point correlation functions obtained from recent lattice simulations, and a partial derivative of the ghost-gluon kernel, which is computed from the corresponding Schwinger-Dyson equation. Our analysis reveals an excellent coincidence between the results obtained through either method, providing a highly nontrivial self-consistency check for the entire approach. When compared to the null hypothesis, where the Schwinger mechanism is assumed to be inactive, the statistical significance of the resulting signal is estimated to be 3 standard deviations.

Abstract: The correlation functions of Yang-Mills theories formulated in the background field method satisfy linear Slavnov-Taylor identities, which are naive generalizations of simple tree level relations, with no deformations originating from the ghost-sector of the theory. In recent years, a stronger version of these identities has been found to hold at the level of the background gluon self-energy, whose transversality is enforced separately for each special block of diagrams contributing to the gluon Schwinger-Dyson equation. In the present work we demonstrate by means of explicit calculations that the same distinct realization of the Slavnov-Taylor identity persists in the case of the background three-gluon vertex. The analysis is carried out at the level of the exact Schwinger-Dyson equation for this vertex, with no truncations or simplifying assumptions. The demonstration entails the contraction of individual vertex diagrams by the relevant momentum, which activates Slavnov-Taylor identities of vertices and multi-particle kernels nested inside these graphs; the final result emerges by virtue of a multitude of extensive cancellations, without the need of performing explicit integrations. In addition, we point out that background Ward identities amount to replacing derivatives of propagators by zero-momentum background-gluon insertions, in exact analogy to standard properties of Abelian gauge theories. Finally, certain potential applications of these results are briefly discussed.