Center vortices and the quark propagator in SU(2) gauge theory

TL;DR

This study investigates how removing center vortices affects the quark propagator in SU(2) gauge theory, revealing a strong link between vortices and chiral symmetry breaking, contrasting with SU(3) results.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the impact of vortex removal on the quark propagator in SU(2), highlighting differences from SU(3) and offering a benchmark for future research.

Findings

Infrared enhancement of the mass function disappears after vortex removal in SU(2).

Vortex-only configurations reproduce the quark dressing function similar to full configurations.

The mass function exhibits an almost linear momentum dependence on vortex-only configurations.

Abstract

We study the behavior of the AsqTad quark propagator in Landau gauge on quenched SU(2) gauge configurations under the removal of center vortices. In contrast to recent results in SU(3), we clearly see the infrared enhancement of the mass function disappear if center vortices are removed, a sign of the intimate relation between center vortices and chiral symmetry breaking in SU(2) gauge-field theory. These results provide a benchmark with which to interpret the SU(3) results. In addition, we consider vortex-only configurations. On those, the quark dressing function behaves roughly as on the full configurations, and the mass function picks up an almost linear momentum dependence.