In this review, we discuss the present status of the description of confining flux tubes in SU(N) pure Yang-Mills theory in terms of ensembles of percolating center vortices. This is based on three main pillars: modelling in the continuum the ensemble components detected in the lattice, the derivation of effective field representations, and contrasting the associated properties with Monte Carlo lattice results. The integration of the present knowledge about these points is essential to get closer to a unified physical picture for confinement. Here, we shall emphasize the last advances, which point to the importance of including the nonoriented center-vortex component and non-Abelian degrees when modelling the center-vortex ensemble measure. These inputs are responsible for the emergence of topological solitons and the possibility of accommodating the asymptotic scaling properties of the confining string tension.
We study baryon configurations in large N non-supersymmetric SU(N) gauge theories, applying the AdS/CFT correspondence. Using the D5-brane worldvolume theory in the near-horizon geometry of non-extremal D3-branes, we find embeddings which describe baryonic states in three-dimensional QCD. In particular, we construct solutions corresponding to a baryon made of N quarks, and study what happens when some fraction $ν$ of the total number of quarks are bodily moved to a large spatial separation from the others. The individual clumps of quarks are represented by Born-Infeld string tubes obtained fro…
We review the current knowledge about the theoretical foundations of the effective string theory for confining flux tubes and the comparison of the predictions to pure gauge lattice data. A concise presentation of the effective string theory is provided, incorporating recent developments. We summarize the predictions for the spectrum and the profile/width of the flux tube and their comparison to lattice data. The review closes with a short summary of open questions for future research.
We consider spatial coarse-graining in statistical ensembles of non-selfintersecting and one-fold selfintersecting center-vortex loops as they emerge in the confining phase of SU(2) Yang-Mills thermodynamics. This coarse-graining is due to a noisy environment and described by a curve shrinking flow of center-vortex loops locally embedded in a two-dimensional flat plane. The renormalization-group flow of an effective `action', which is defined in purely geometric terms, is driven by the curve shrinking evolution. In the case of non-selfintersecting center-vortex loops, we observe critical behav…
We describe flux tubes and their interactions in a low energy sigma model induced by $SU({N_f}) \rightarrow SO({N_f})$ flavor symmetry breaking in $SO(N_c)$ QCD. Unlike standard QCD, this model allows gauge confinement to manifest itself in the low energy theory, which has unscreened spinor color sources and global $Z_2$ flux tubes. We construct the flux tubes and show how they mediate the confinement of spinor sources. We further examine the flux tubes' quantum stability, spectrum and interactions. We find that flux tubes are Alice strings, despite ambiguities in defining parallel transport. …
The emergence of flux-tubes as the distance is increased between a quark and an antiquark is explored in a three-dimensional confining gauge theory using the gauge/gravity duality. We delineate the shape of the flux-tube corresponding to the classical open string in the bulk and further explore the fluctuation in its thickness induced by the fluctuation of the open string along the radial direction in the bulk. The relationship between the intrinsic shape of a flux-tube and its effect on the heavy quark potential is also discussed.
In this review, after a general introduction to the effective string theory (EST) description of confinement in pure gauge theories, we discuss the behaviour of EST as the temperature is increased. We show that, as the deconfinement point is approached from below, several universal features of confining gauge theories, like the ratio $T_c/\sqrt{σ_0}$, the linear increase of the squared width of the flux tube with the interquark distance, or the Temperature dependence of the interquark potential, can be accurately predicted by the effective string. Moreover in the vicinity of the deconfinement …
We study N=1 gauge theories obtained by adding finite mass terms to N=4 Yang-Mills theory. The Maldacena dual is nonsingular: in each of the many vacua, there is an extended brane source, arising from Myers' dielectric effect. The source consists of one or more (p,q) 5-branes. In particular, the confining vacuum contains an NS5-brane; the confining flux tube is a fundamental string bound to the 5-brane. The system admits a simple quantitative description as a perturbation of a state on the N=4 Coulomb branch. Various nonperturbative phenomena, including flux tubes, baryon vertices, domain wall…
The dual formulation of the compact U(1) lattice gauge theory in three spacetime dimensions allows to finely study the squared width and the profile of the confining flux tube on a wide range of physical interquark distances. The results obtained in Monte Carlo simulations are compared with the predictions of the effective bosonic-string model and with the dual superconductor model. While the former fails at describing the data from a quantitative point of view, the latter is in good agreement with it. An interpretation of these results is proposed in light of the particular features of the U(…
We present a new vortex solution made of a domain wall compactified into a cylinder and stabilized by the magnetic flux within. When the thickness of the wall is much less than the radius of the vortex some precise results can be obtained, such as the tension spectrum and profile functions. This vortex can naturally end on the wall that has created it, making the simplest junction between a wall and a vortex. We then classify every kind of junction between a flux tube and domain wall. The criteria for classification are as follows: a flux can or can not end on the wall, and when it ends, the f…
We consider the effect of the magnetic field background in the form of a tube of the finite transverse size on the vacuum of the quantized charged massive scalar field which is subject to the Dirichlet boundary condition at the tube. It is shown that, if the Compton wavelength associated with the scalar field exceeds considerably the transverse size of the tube, then the vacuum energy which is finite and periodic in the value of the magnetic flux enclosed in the tube is induced on a plane transverse to the tube. Some consequences for generic features of the vacuum polarization in the cosmic-st…
I begin these three lectures by describing some of the useful things that we have learned about large-N gauge theories using lattice simulations. For example that the theory is confining in that limit, that for many quantities SU(3) is close to SU(oo), and that this includes the strongly coupled gluon plasma just above Tc, thus providing some of the justification needed to make use of gauge-gravity duality in analysing QCD at RHIC/LHC temperatures. I then turn, in a more detailed discussion, to recent progress on the problem of what effective string theory describes confining flux tubes. I des…
Lattice QCD simulations provide crucial information about the worldsheet dynamics of confining strings (flux tubes). An accurate extraction of the worldsheet $S$-matrix from lattice spectra requires accounting for polarization effects. Approximate integrability of the low energy worldsheet theory makes it possible to apply the Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz to incorporate polarization effects at all orders in the number of windings and at the leading order in the derivative expansion. However, a systematic application of this technique in the presence of non-integrable effects and for multiparticl…
Numerical data for the SU(2) confining string in the maximal abelian projection are analysed. The distribution of the electric flux and monopole currents are perfectly described by the classical equations of motion for the dual Abelian Higgs model. The mass of the vector boson is equal to the mass of the monopole (Higgs particle) within numerical errors. The classical energy per unit length of the Abrikosov vortex reproduces 94% of the full non-Abelian string tension.
We investigate the flux-tube joining two equal and opposite electric charges using the dual Ginzburg-Landau model of superconductivity. The model is supplemented with an additional scalar field carrying a non-Abelian global symmetry, broken in the vortex cores. The presence of orientational moduli makes the flux tube non-Abelian. We perform a detailed study of the low energy theory of this soliton. We also analyze the solution representing superconducting droplets in the presence of the monopole anti - monopole pair.
We describe two interesting effects in wormhole physics. First, we find that a genuinely charged matter source may appear neutral to an external observer - a phenomenon opposite to the famous Misner-Wheeler "charge without charge" effect. This phenomenon takes place when coupling a bulk gravity/nonlinear-gauge-field system to a charged lightlike brane as a matter source. The "charge-hiding" effect occurs in a wormhole solution which connects a non-compact "universe", comprising the exterior region of Schwarzschild-(anti-)de-Sitter (SdS) or purely Schwarzschild black hole beyond the Schwarzschi…
We use the finite temperature AdS/CFT approach to demonstrate logarithmic broadening of the confining QCD3 flux tube as a function of quark separation. This behavior indicates that, unlike lattice QCD, there is no roughening transition in the AdS/CFT formulation, which raises the interesting possibility of extrapolating strong coupling results to weak couplings by the use of resummation techniques. In the zero-temperature non-confining limit, we find that this logarithmic broadening of the field strength distribution is absent. Our results are obtained numerically at strong couplings, in the s…
We investigate the width of the flux tube between heavy static quark charges. Using the gauge/gravity duality, we find the properties of the minimal connected surface related to the width of the bound state. We show that in the confining phase, the logarithmic broadening predicted by the effective string description and observed in lattice simulations is a generic property of all confining backgrounds. We also study the transverse fluctuations of the string connecting two static quarks in curved backgrounds. Our formalism is applied to AdS space where we compute the expectation value of the sq…
We apply the Callan-Harvey anomaly inflow mechanism to the study of QCD (chromoelectric) flux tubes, quark (pair)-creation and chiral magnetic effect, using new variables from the Cho-Faddeev-Niemi decomposition of the gauge potential. A phenomenological description of chromoelectric flux tubes is obtained by studying a gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio effective Lagrangian, derived from the original QCD Lagrangian. At the quantum level, quark condensates in the QCD vacuum may form a vortex-like structure in a chromoelectric flux tube. Quark zero modes trapped in the vortex are chiral and lead to a tw…
Confining Flux Tube in the Trace Deformed (2+1) Dimensional SU(2) Gauge Theory
University of Pisa and INFN（比萨大学和意大利国家核物理研究所）；University of Torino and INFN（都灵大学和意大利国家核物理研究所）；Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, University of Bonn（波恩大学亥姆霍兹辐射与核物理研究所）；Bethe Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Bonn（波恩大学贝特理论物理中心）
We present recent results on the spectrum of a confining flux tube that is closed around a spatial torus as a function of its length as well as the spectrum of glueballs. The extraction of the spectra has been realized by simulating four dimensional $SU(N)$ gauge theories and performing measurements using lattice techniques. Regarding flux-tubes, we have performed calculations for $N=3,5,6$ and for various values of spin, parity and longitudinal momentum. Long flux-tubes can be thought of as infinitesimally thin strings; hence their spectrum is expected to be described by an effective string t…
The spherically and cylindrically symmetric solutions of the $SU(3)$ Yang - Mills theory are obtained. The corresponding gauge potential has the confining properties. It is supposed that: a) the spherically symmetric solution is a field distribution of the classical ``quark'' and in this sense it is similar to the Coulomb potential; b) the cylindrically symmetric solution describes a classical field ``string'' (flux tube) between two ``quarks''. It is noticed that these solutions are typically for the classical $SU(3)$ Yang - Mills theory in contradiction to monopole that is an exceptional sol…
We offer a physicists' proof that center-vortex theory requires the area in the Wilson-loop area law to involve an extremal area. Area-law dynamics is determined by integrating over Wilson loops only, not over surface fluctuations for a fixed loop. Fluctuations leading to to perimeter-law corrections come from loop fluctuations as well as integration over finite -thickness center-vortex collective coordinates. In d=3 (or d=2+1) we exploit a contour form of the extremal area in isothermal which is similar to d=2 (or d=1+1) QCD in many respects, except that there are both quartic and quadratic t…
Spherically and cylindrically symmetric solutions of SU(3) Yang-Mills theory are found, whose gauge potentials have confining properties. The spherically symmetric solutions give field distributions which have a spherical surface on which the gauge fields become infinite (which is similar to bag models of confinement), and the other solution has a potential which increases at large distances. The cylindrically symmetric solution describes a classical field "string" (flux tube) of the kind which is expected to form between quarks in the dual superconductor picture of confinement. These solution…
As noted by Witten, compactifying a $d$-dimensional holographic CFT on an $S^1$ gives a class of $(d-1)$-dimensional confining theories with gravity duals. The prototypical bulk solution dual to the ground state is a double Wick rotation of the AdS$_{d+1}$ Schwarzschild black hole known as the AdS soliton. We generalize such examples by allowing slow variations in the size of the $S^1$, and thus in the confinement scale. Coefficients governing the second order response of the system are computed for $3 \le d \le 8$ using a derivative expansion closely related to the fluid-gravity correspondenc…
For the four-dimensional SU(N) Euclidean Yang-Mills theory in the Landau gauge, we present two sets of gauge field configurations that satisfy the Euclidean equations of motion. These configurations generate four-dimensional chromo-field flux sheets whose spatial cross sections are three-dimensional chromo-field flux tubes. In lattice simulations, they may be detected as center vortices. The first set of gauge field configurations generates chromo-electric flux tubes that should contribute to a chromo-electric flux tube between two static color charges. The string tension for two static color …
Assuming that center vortices are the confining gauge field configurations, we argue that in gauges that are sensitive to the confining center vortex degrees of freedom, and where the latter lie on the Gribov horizon, the corresponding ghost form factor is infrared divergent. Furthermore, this infrared divergence disappears when center vortices are removed from the Yang-Mills ensemble. On the other hand, for gauge conditions which are insensitive to center vortex degrees of freedom, the ghost form factor is infrared finite and does not change (qualitatively) when center vortices are removed. E…
We study analytically and numerically the interaction potentials between a pair of quark an anti-quark on D3, M2 and M5 branes. These potentials are obtained using Maldacena's method involving Wilson loops and present confining and non-confining behaviours in different situations that we explore in this work. In particular, at the near horizon geometry the potentials are non-confining in agreement with conformal field theory expectations. On the other side, far from horizon, the dual field theories are no longer conformal and the potentials present confinement. This is in agreement with the be…
We investigate the 2D behavior of one-fold selfintersecting, topologically stabilized center-vortex loops in the confining phase of an SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. This coarse-graining is described by curve-shrinking evolution of center-vortex loops immersed in a flat 2D plane driving the renormalization-group flow of an effective `action'. We observe that the system evolves into a highly ordered state at finite noise level, and we speculate that this feature is connected with 2D planar high $T_c$ superconductivity in $FeAs$ systems.
We develop a bootstrap approach to Effective Field Theories (EFTs) based on the concept of duality in optimisation theory. As a first application, we consider the fascinating set of EFTs for confining flux tubes. The outcome of our analysis are optimal bounds on the scattering amplitude of Goldstone excitations of the flux tube, which in turn translate into bounds on the Wilson coefficients of the EFT action. Finally, we comment on how our approach compares to EFT positivity bounds.
A topological defect in the form of the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortex in a space of arbitrary dimension is considered as a gauge-flux-carrying tube that is impenetrable for quantum matter. Charged scalar matter field is quantized in the vortex background with the perfectly rigid (Neumann) boundary condition imposed at the side surface of the vortex. We show that a current circulating around the vortex is induced in the vacuum, if the Compton wavelength of the matter field exceeds the transverse size of the vortex considerably. The vacuum current is periodic in the value of the gauge flux of …
Representations of the Abelian-projected SU(2)- and SU(3)-gluodynamics in terms of the magnetic monopole currents are derived. Besides the quadratic part, the obtained effective actions contain interactions of these currents with the world-sheets of electric strings in 4D or electric vortex lines in 3D. Next, we illustrate that 3D compact QED is a small gauge boson mass limit of 3D Abelian Higgs model with external monopoles and give a physical interpretation to the confining string theory as the integral over the monopole densities. Finally, we derive the bilocal field strength correlator in …
Color magnetic flux tubes appear in the color-flavor locked phase of high density QCD, which exhibits color superconductivity as well as superfluidity. They are non-Abelian superfluid vortices and are accompanied by orientational zero modes in the internal space associated with the color-flavor locked symmetry spontaneously broken in the presence of the vortex. We show that those zero modes are localized around the vortex in spite of the logarithmic divergence of its tension, and derive the low-energy effective theory of them on the world-sheet of the vortex-string.
In the confining phase of any gauge system the mean squared width of the colour flux tube joining a pair of quarks should grow logarithmically as a function of their distance, according to the effective string description of its infrared properties. New data on 3D Z_2 gauge theory, combined with high precision data on the interface physics of the 3D Ising model fit nicely this behaviour over a range of more than two orders of magnitude.
We study the boundary contribution to the low energy effective action of the open string describing the confining flux tube in gauge theories. The form of the boundary terms is strongly constrained by the requirement of Lorentz symmetry, which is spontaneously broken by the formation of a long confining flux tube in the vacuum. Writing the boundary action as an expansion in the derivatives of the Nambu-Goldstone modes describing the transverse fluctuations of the string, we single out and put in a closed form the first few Lorentz invariant boundary terms. We also evaluate the leading deviatio…
We study the flux tube thickness of a generic Lattice Gauge Theory near the deconfining phase transition. It is well known that the effective string model predicts a logarithmic increase of the flux tube thickness as a function of the interquark distance for any confining LGT at zero temperature. It is perhaps less known that this same model predicts a linear increase in the vicinity of the deconfinement transition. We present a precise derivation of this result and compare it with a set of high precision simulations in the case of the 3d gauge Ising model.
Quark matter at high density may exhibit color superconductivity. As magnetic flux tubes in metallic superconductors, color magnetic flux tubes as non-Abelian vortices appear in the color-flavor locked phase of high density QCD. ${\mathbb C}P^2$ Nambu-Goldstone bosons and Majorana fermions belonging to the triplet representation are known to be localized around a non-Abelian vortex. In this paper, we determine the coupling of these bosonic and fermionic modes by using the nonlinear realization method.
We study the flux tube junctions in the limit of large magnetic flux. In this limit the flux tube becomes a wall vortex which is a wall of negligible thickness (compared to the radius of the tube) compactified on a cylinder and stabilized by the flux inside. This wall surface can also assume different shapes that correspond to soliton junctions. We can have a flux tube that ends on a wall, a flux tube that ends on a monopole and more generic configurations containing all three of them. In this paper we find the differential equations that describe the shape of the wall vortex surface for these…
We investigate, by numerical lattice simulations, the static quark-antiquark potential, the flux tube properties and the chiral condensate for $N_f = 2+1$ QCD with physical quark masses in the presence of strong magnetic fields, going up to $eB = 9$ GeV$^2$, with continuum extrapolated results. The string tension for quark-antiquark separations longitudinal to the magnetic field is suppressed by one order of magnitude at the largest explored magnetic field with respect to its value at zero magnetic background, but is still non-vanishing; in the transverse direction, instead, the string tension…
We investigate the confining properties of the QCD vacuum with $N_f=2$ flavors of dynamical quarks, and compare the results with the properties of the quenched theory. We use non-perturbatively $\mathcal{O}(a)$ improved Wilson fermions to keep cut-off effects small. We focus on color magnetic monopoles. Among the quantities we study are the monopole density and the monopole screening length, the static potential and the profile of the color electric flux tube. We furthermore derive the low-energy effective monopole action. Marked differences between the quenched and dynamical vacuum are found.
We study the squared width and the profile of flux tubes in compact U(1) lattice gauge theory in three spacetime dimensions. The results obtained from numerical calculations in the dual formulation of this confining theory are compared with predictions from an effective bosonic-string model and from the dual-superconductor model: it is found that the former fails at describing the quantitative features of the flux tube, while the latter is in good agreement with Monte Carlo data. The analytical interpretation of these results (in the light of the semi-classical analysis by Polyakov) is pointed…
We study the flux tube thickness in the confining phase of the (2+1)d SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory near the deconfining phase transition. Following the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture, we map the problem to the study of the <epsilon sigma sigma> correlation function in the two-dimensional spin model with Z_2 global symmetry, (i.e. the 2d Ising model) in the high-temperature phase. Using the form factor approach we obtain an explicit expression for this function and from it we infer the behaviour of the flux density of the original (2+1)d LGT. Remarkably enough the result we obtain for the flux tube t…
In this work, we propose a $3D$ ensemble measure for center-vortex worldlines and chains equipped with non-Abelian degrees of freedom. We derive an effective field description for the center-element average where the vortices get represented by $N$ flavors of effective Higgs fields transforming in the fundamental representation. This field content is required to accommodate fusion rules where $N$ vortices can be created out of the vacuum. The inclusion of the chain sector, formed by center-vortex worldlines attached to pointlike defects, leads to a discrete set of $Z(N)$ vacua. This type of SS…
A finite-length magnetic vortex line solution is derived within the context of (4-dim) dilaton gravity. We approach the Bonnor metric at the Einstein-Maxwell limit, and encounter the "flux tube as (Euclidean) Kerr horizon" at the Kaluza-Klein level. Exclusively for string theory, the magnetic flux tube world-sheet exhibits a 2-dim black & white dihole structure. (The figure has been cut off, and is now available upon request from davidson@bguvms.bgu.ac.il)
We calculate, numerically, the low-lying spectrum of closed confining flux tubes that carry flux in different representations of SU(N). We do so for SU(6) at beta=171, where the calculated low-energy physics is very close to the continuum limit and, in many respects, also close to N=infinity. We focus on the adjoint, 84, 120, k=2A,2S and k=3A,3M,3S representations and provide evidence that the corresponding flux tubes, albeit mostly unstable, do in fact exist. We observe that the ground state of a flux tube with momentum along its axis appears to be well defined in all cases and is well descri…
We provide a detailed introduction to a method we recently proposed for calculating the spectrum of excitations of effective strings such as QCD flux tubes. The method relies on the approximate integrability of the low energy effective theory describing the flux tube excitations and is is based on the Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz (TBA). The approximate integrability is a consequence of the Lorentz symmetry of QCD. For excited states the convergence of the TBA technique is significantly better than that of the traditional perturbative approach. We apply the new technique to the lattice spectra fo…
