Collapse of flux tubes
Flux tubes are one of the most elementary systems of quantum chromodynamics. They are the idealized configurations of heavy quark-antiquark pairs at large separations L such that the region between can be assumed to possess axial-cylindrical symmetry. They play a central role in lattice QCD calculations and in models of QCD, as well as in the phenomenology of QCD processes. Lattice QCD calculations on flux tubes are generally limited to the quenched approximation (no massless quarks) and allow for a separation of the heavy quark-antiquark of only about 1 fm. Static flux tubes are unstable at separations greater than 1 fm, since the energy required to stretch the tube by 1 fm is about 1 GeV and that is about the energy difference between a quarkonium, Q{bar Q}, and a pair of heavy-light mesons, Q{bar q} + {bar Q}q. Lattice calculations without light quarks cannot explore this instability. The author then reviews work on efforts to explore the creation of light quark pairs as a mechanism for flux tube breaking.
- Research Organization:
- Washington Univ., Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG06-88ER40427
- OSTI ID:
- 10110712
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/ER/40427-21-N93; CONF-930999-3; ON: DE94004645; TRN: 94:000613
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: NATO Advanced Study Institute on hot and dense nuclear matter,Bodrum (Turkey),26 Sep - 9 Oct 1993; Other Information: PBD: [1993]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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