Thermal ground state and nonthermal probes

The Euclidean formulation of SU(2) Yang-Mills thermodynamics admits periodic, (anti)selfdual solutions to the fundamental, classical equation of motion which possess one unit of topological charge: (anti)calorons. A spatial coarse graining over the central region in a pair of such localised field configurations with trivial holonomy generates an inert adjoint scalar field $ϕ$, effectively describing the pure quantum part of the thermal ground state in the induced quantum field theory. Here we show for the limit of zero holonomy how (anti)calorons associate a temperature independent electric permittivity and magnetic permeability to the thermal ground state of SU(2)$_{\tiny\mbox{CMB}}$, the Yang-Mills theory conjectured to underlie photon propagation.

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