2008/06/30 by L. E. Oxman
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2008/12/089
published as JHEP 0812:089,2008 · 36 pages, improved version containing a more general discussion
arxiv created 2008/11/25 · openalex publication_date 2008/12/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
We argue that in the infrared regime of continuum Yang-Mills theory, the possibility of a mass gap in the charged sector is closely associated with the center vortex sector. The analysis of the possible consequences of the ensembles of defects is done by showing that the description of center vortices and monopoles is naturally unified by means of a careful treatment of Cho decomposition. If on the one hand confinement is usually associated with monopole condensation in a compact abelian model, in this scenario, the previous decoupling of the off-diagonal degrees of freedom, for the abelian model dominate at large distances, can be understood as induced by a phase where center vortices become thick objects. Other important scenarios for correlated monopoles and center vortices, observed in lattice simulations, are also accomodated in our general formulation.