Abelian monopoles and center vortices in Yang-Mills plasma

TL;DR

This paper explores the role of Abelian monopoles and center vortices in the confinement and deconfinement phases of Yang-Mills theory, emphasizing their impact on the plasma's properties and proposing a 3D Higgs field model.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interpretation of magnetic topological degrees of freedom as a 3D Higgs field, linking vortices to the effective 3D description of Yang-Mills plasma.

Findings

Monopoles and vortices are crucial in the deconfinement phase.

A 3D Higgs field can effectively describe magnetic components.

Magnetic degrees of freedom influence the plasma's thermodynamics.

Abstract

Condensation of the Abelian monopoles and the center vortices leads to confinement of color in low temperature phase of Yang-Mills theory. We stress that these topological magnetic degrees of freedom are also very important in the deconfinement regime: at the point of the deconfinement phase transition both the monopoles and the vortices are released into the thermal vacuum contributing, in particular, to the equation of state and, definitely, to transport properties of the hot gluonic medium. Thus, we argue that a novel, magnetic component plays a crucial role. On the other hand, it was demonstrated that an effective three-dimensional description can be brought, beginning with high temperatures, down to the critical temperature by postulating existence of a system of 3d Higgs fields. We propose to identify the 3d color-singlet Higgs field with the 3d projection of the 4d magnetic vortices. Such identification fits well the 3d properties of the theory and contributes to interpretation of the magnetic component of the Yang-Mills plasma.