Topological defects and equation of state of gluon plasma

TL;DR

This paper investigates how magnetic monopoles and vortex-like gluonic configurations significantly influence the energy-momentum tensor anomaly in the gluon plasma just above the critical temperature, highlighting their thermodynamic relevance.

Contribution

It provides evidence that monopole-vortex chains and nets are important degrees of freedom in the deconfined gluonic plasma, extending understanding of their role beyond zero temperature.

Findings

Magnetic monopoles and vortices contribute to the energy-momentum tensor anomaly.

Monopole-vortex chains and nets are thermodynamically relevant in gluon plasma.

Results support the significance of topological configurations in deconfined phase.

Abstract

We show that the degrees of freedom associated with magnetic monopole- and vortexlike gluonic configurations make a strong contribution to the anomaly of the energy-momentum tensor of Yang-Mills theory in the deconfinement phase immediately above the critical temperature. As is well known in zero-temperature Yang-Mills theory, the monopoles and vortices are constituents of a generic gluonic object in which the two neighbor monopoles are connected together by a segment of vortex string. Our results provide evidence that the monopole-vortex chains in SU(2) gauge theory and their SU(3) counterparts, the monopole-vortex nets, are thermodynamically relevant degrees of freedom in the gluonic plasma.