Gauge-independent "Abelian" and magnetic-monopole dominance, and the dual Meissner effect in lattice $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills theory

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates gauge-independent evidence for Abelian and magnetic-monopole dominance, as well as the dual Meissner effect, supporting the dual superconductor model of quark confinement in lattice SU(2) Yang-Mills theory.

Contribution

It introduces a gauge-independent reformulation of lattice SU(2) Yang-Mills theory and provides numerical evidence for the dual superconductor picture of confinement.

Findings

Gauge-independent Abelian and monopole dominance confirmed.

Observation of the dual Meissner effect via flux squeezing.

Determination of the dual superconductor type using the Ginzburg-Landau model.

Abstract

In the $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills theory on the four-dimensional Euclidean lattice, we confirm the gauge-independent "Abelian" dominance (or the restricted field dominance) and gauge-independent magnetic-monopole dominance in the string tension of the linear potential extracted from the Wilson loop in the fundamental representation. The dual Meissner effect is observed by demonstrating the squeezing of the chromoelectric field flux connecting a pair of quark and antiquark. In addition, the circular magnetic-monopole current is induced around the chromoelectric flux. The type of the dual superconductivity is also determined by fitting the result with the dual Ginzburg-Landau model. Thus the dual superconductor picture for quark confinement is supported in a gauge-independent manner. These results are obtained based on a reformulation of the lattice Yang-Mills theory based on the change of variables a la Cho-Duan-Ge-Faddeev-Niemi combined with a non-Abelian Stokes theorem for the Wilson loop operator. We give a new procedure (called the reduction) for obtaining the color direction field which plays the central role in this reformulation.