Confined Charged Particles in C-periodic Volumes

Abstract

Charged particles in an Abelian Coulomb phase are non-local infraparticles that are surrounded by a cloud of soft photons which extends to infinity. Gauss' law prevents the existence of charged particles in a periodic volume. In a $C$-periodic volume, which is periodic up to charge conjugation, on the other hand, charged particles can exist. This includes vortices in the $3$-d XY-model, magnetic monopoles in $4$-d $\mathrm{U}(1)$ gauge theory, as well as protons and other charged particles in QCD coupled to QED. In four dimensions non-Abelian charges are confined. Hence, in an infinite volume non-Abelian infraparticles cost an infinite amount of energy. However, in a $C$-periodic volume non-Abelian infraparticles (whose energy increases linearly with the box size) can indeed exist. Investigating these states holds the promise of deepening our understanding of confinement.

Proceedings for the 39th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, LATTICE2022