STRING BREAKING IN NON-ABELIAN GAUGE THEORIES WITH FUNDAMENTAL MATTER FIELDS

We present clear numerical evidence for string breaking in three-dimensional SU(2) gauge theory with fundamental bosonic matter through a mixing analysis between Wilson loops and meson operators representing bound states of a static source and a dynamical scalar. The breaking scale is calculated in the continuum limit. In units of the lightest glueball we find ${r}_{\mathrm{b}}{m}_{G}\ensuremath{\approx}13.6$. The implications of our results for QCD are discussed.