Compact gauge fields on Causal Dynamical Triangulations: a 2D case study

We discuss the discretization of Yang-Mills theories on Dynamical Triangulations in the compact formulation, with gauge fields living on the links of the dual graph associated with the triangulation, and the numerical investigation of the minimally coupled system by Monte Carlo simulations. We provide, in particular, an explicit construction and implementation of the Markov chain moves for 2D Causal Dynamical Triangulations coupled to either U(1) or SU(2) gauge fields; the results of exploratory numerical simulations on a toroidal geometry are also presented for both cases. We study the critical behavior of gravity-related observables, determining the associated critical indices, which turn out to be independent of the bare gauge coupling: we obtain in particular ν = 0.496(7) for the critical index regulating the divergence of the correlation length of the volume profiles. Gauge observables are also investigated, including holonomies (torelons) and, for the U(1) gauge theory, the winding number and the topological susceptibility. An interesting result is that the critical slowing down of the topological charge, which affects various lattice field theories in the continuum limit, seems to be strongly suppressed (i.e. by orders of magnitude) by the presence of a locally variable geometry: that may suggest possible ways for improvement also in other contexts.