Vortices and confinement at weak coupling
- Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-390 (United States)
- Department of Physics, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095-1547 (United States)
We discuss the physical picture of thick vortices as the mechanism responsible for confinement at arbitrarily weak coupling in SU(2) gauge theory. By introducing appropriate variables on the lattice we distinguish between thin, thick and {open_quotes}hybrid{close_quotes} vortices, the latter involving Z(2) monopole loop boundaries. We present numerical lattice simulation results that demonstrate that the full SU(2) string tension at weak coupling arises from the presence of vortices linked to the Wilson loop. Conversely, excluding linked vortices eliminates the confining potential. The numerical results are stable under an alternate choice of lattice action as well as a smoothing procedure which removes short distance fluctuations while preserving long distance physics. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society}
- OSTI ID:
- 624775
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, D, Journal Name: Physical Review, D Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 57; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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