Non-Abelian Confinement in N=2 Supersymmetric QCD: Duality and Kinks on Confining Strings

TL;DR

This paper investigates the confinement mechanisms in N=2 supersymmetric QCD, analyzing dualities and the spectrum of confined monopoles and mesons through world-sheet theories on non-Abelian strings, revealing new insights into non-Abelian confinement.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the world-sheet dynamics on non-Abelian strings, linking bulk duality with two-dimensional supersymmetric models and identifying the representation of confined monopoles.

Findings

Kinks on the string world sheet form fundamental representations of the global symmetry.

Confirmation of 'extra' stringy meson states in the adjoint representation.

Duality in the bulk theory corresponds to duality in the world-sheet CP(N_f-1) model.

Abstract

Recently we observed a crossover transition (in the Fayet-Iliopoulos parameter) from weak to strong coupling in N=2 supersymmetric QCD with the U(N) gauge group and N_f > N quark flavors. At strong coupling this theory can be described by a dual non-Abelian weakly coupled SQCD with the dual gauge group U(N_f-N) and N_f light dyon flavors. Both theories support non-Abelian strings. We continue the study of confinement dynamics in these theories, in particular, metamorphoses of excitation spectra, from a different side. A number of results obtained previously are explained, enhanced and supplemented by analyzing the world-sheet dynamics on the non-Abelian confining strings. The world-sheet theory is the two-dimensional N=(2,2) supersymmetric weighted CP(N_f-1) model. We explore the vacuum structure and kinks on the world sheet, corresponding to confined monopoles in the bulk theory. We show that (in the equal quark mass limit) these kinks fall into the fundamental representation of the unbroken global SU(N)\times SU(N_f-N)\timesU(1) group. This result confirms the presence of "extra" stringy meson states in the adjoint representation of the global group in the bulk theory. The non-Abelian bulk duality is in one-to-one correspondence with a duality taking place in the N=(2,2) supersymmetric weighted CP(N_f-1) model.