Centre Vortices in SU(3)

TL;DR

This paper explores how smearing as a preconditioning step in gauge fixing affects vortex detection and confinement in SU(3) gauge theories, revealing that preconditioning reduces vortex presence and impacts string tension measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a preconditioning method using smearing before Maximal Centre Gauge fixing, showing its effects on vortex identification and confinement properties in SU(3).

Findings

Preconditioning increases gauge-fixing maxima.

Vortex count decreases with preconditioning.

String tension from vortex-only configs drops significantly.

Abstract

We investigate the effectiveness of using smearing as a means to generate a preconditioning transformation for gauge fields prior to fixing to Maximal Centre Gauge. This still leaves the gauge-fixed field in the original gauge orbit. As expected, we find that this preconditioning leads to higher maxima of the gauge-fixing condition, resulting in lower numbers of P-vortices. We also find that removing vortices appears to give a loss of confinement for all cases but that the string tension as measured from vortex-only configurations drops from about 65% to as low as 26% when using the preconditioning method.