Two-loop corrections to the QCD propagators within the Curci-Ferrari model

We evaluate all two-point correlation functions of the Curci-Ferrari (CF) model in four dimensions and in the presence of mass-degenerate fundamental quark flavors, as a natural extension of an earlier investigation in the quenched approximation. In principle, the proper account of chiral symmetry breaking (chi SB) and the corresponding dynamical generation of a quark-mass function within the CF model requires one to go beyond perturbation theory [M. Pelaez, U. Reinosa, J. Serreau, M. Tissier, and N. Wschebor, Phys. Rev. D 103, 094035 (2021)]. However, it is interesting to assess whether a perturbative description applies to correlation functions that are not directly sensitive to chi SB, such as the gluon, ghost and quark dressing functions. We compare our two-loop results for these form factors to QCD lattice data in the two-flavor case for two different values of the pion mass, one that is relatively far from the chiral limit, and one that is closer to the physical value. Our results confirm that the QCD gluon and ghost dressing functions are well described by a perturbative approach within the CF model, as already observed at one-loop order [M. Pelaez, M. Tissier, and N. Wschebor, Phys. Rev. D 90, 065031 (2014)]. Our new main result is that the quark dressing function is also well captured by the perturbative approach, but only starting at two-loop order, as also anticipated [M. Pelaez, M. Tissier, and N. Wschebor, Phys. Rev. D 90, 065031 (2014)]. The quark-mass function predicted by the CF model at two-loop order is in good agreement with the data if the quarks are not too light but it shows some clear tension with respect to the two-loop CF dressing functions in the close to physical case, as expected. Interestingly, however, we find that there is much less tension between the nonperturbative quark-mass function, as it can be obtained from lattice simulations or from M. Pelaez, U. Reinosa, J. Serreau, M. Tissier, and N. Wschebor, Phys. Rev. D 103, 094035 (2021), and the two-loop CF dressing functions, which confirms the perturbative nature of the latter.