Dynamical properties of the vacuum in non-abelian field theories with and without supersymmetry

In QCD with massless quarks, the effective potential for the color singlet operator (F_μν^a)² can be constructed by the use of the trace anomaly equation and tells us that magnetic gluon condensation, 〈0|(F_μν^a)²|0〉 > 0, occurs. When the method is applied to supersymmetric QCD, however, it gives us a puzzle; the gluons condense with negative energy density, and supersymmetry is broken in a pathological manner with the appearance of a negatively normed Nambu-Goldstone fermion. Spurred on by this observation, we examine in detail the properties of the vacuum for the super (and ordinary) O(N) non-linear σ model in two dimensions for which a similar puzzling situation occurs with regard to the lagrangian condensate. We find, in particular, that (i) the chiral condensate plays a crucial role in resolving the puzzle and that (ii) it is the nature of the response of the lagrangian condensate to the test charge, not the sign or the magnitude of the condensate itself, that determines the phase of the system. Implications of these results for (super) QCD, including an unconventional possibility of “electric” gluon condensation, are discussed.