QCD on the Light-Front -- A Systematic Approach to Hadron Physics

Understand

Light-Front Hamiltonian theory provides a rigorous frame-independent framework for solving nonperturbative QCD.

• The valence Fock-state wavefunctions of the light-front QCD Hamiltonian satisfy a single-variable relativistic equation of motion, analogous to the nonrelativistic radial Schr\"odinger equation, with an effective confining potential U which systematically incorporates the effects of higher quark and gluon Fock states.
• Remarkably, the potential U has a unique form of a harmonic oscillator potential if one requires that the chiral QCD action remains conformally invariant.
• A mass gap arises when one extends the formalism of de Alfaro, Fubini and Furlan to light-front Hamiltonian theory.