2005/09/02 by C.P. Korthals Altes, Chris P. Korthals Altes, Harvey B. Meyer +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-ph/0509018
48 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2005/09/02 · openalex publication_date 2005/09/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
When the magnetic sector of hot QCD, 3D SU(N) Yang-Mills theory, is described as a dilute gas of non-Abelian monopoles in the adjoint representation of the magnetic group, Wilson loops of N-ality k are known to obey a periodic k(N-k) law. Lattice simulations have confirmed this prediction to a few percent for N=4 and 6. We describe in detail how the magnetic flux of the monopoles produces different area laws for spatial Wilson k-loops. A simple physical argument is presented, why the predicted and observed Casimir scaling is allowed in the large-N limit by usual power-counting arguments. The same scaling is also known to hold in two-loop perturbation theory for the spatial 't Hooft loop, which measures the electric flux. We then present new lattice data for 3D N=8 k-strings as long as 3`fm' that provide further confirmation. Finally we suggest new tests in theories with spontaneous breaking and in SO(4n+2) gauge groups.