What are the Confining Field Configurations of Strong-Coupling Lattice Gauge Theory?

Abstract

Starting from the strong-coupling SU(2) Wilson action in D=3 dimensions, we derive an effective, semi-local action on a lattice of spacing L times the spacing of the original lattice. It is shown that beyond the adjoint color-screening distance, i.e. for $L\ge 5$, thin center vortices are stable saddlepoints of the corresponding effective action. Since the entropy of these stable objects exceeds their energy, center vortices percolate throughout the lattice, and confine color charge in half-integer representations of the SU(2) gauge group. This result contradicts the folklore that confinement in strong-coupling lattice gauge theory, for D>2 dimensions, is simply due to plaquette disorder, as is the case in D=2 dimensions. It also demonstrates explicitly how the emergence and stability of center vortices is related to the existence of color screening by gluon fields.

17 pages, 5 figures, latex2e

Cited by in corpus (9)

• The Confinement Problem in Lattice Gauge Theory
• Color Screening, Casimir Scaling, and Domain Structure in G(2) and SU(N) Gauge Theories
• Topological Susceptibility of Yang-Mills Center Projection Vortices
• Center-Vortex Solutions of the Yang-Mills Effective Action in Three and Four Dimensions
• k-String Tensions and Center Vortices at Large N
• Vortex waistlines and long range fluctuations
• Connection between Chiral Symmetry Restoration and Deconfinement
• The Higgs field and the ultraviolet behaviour of the vortex operator in 2+1 dimensions
• Center Vortices at Strong Couplings