Lessons from supersymmetry: "Instead-of-Confinement" Mechanism

TL;DR

This paper reviews how certain supersymmetric QCD models exhibit an 'instead-of-confinement' phase, providing insights into mechanisms that resemble real-world QCD confinement through monopole and string dynamics.

Contribution

It elucidates the 'instead-of-confinement' mechanism in N=2 supersymmetric QCD deformed to N=1, highlighting its relevance as a prototype for understanding QCD confinement.

Findings

Identification of the 'instead-of-confinement' phase in the r=N vacuum.

Description of quark and gauge boson screening at weak coupling.

Evolution into monopole-antimonopole pairs confined by non-Abelian strings at strong coupling.

Abstract

We review physical scenarios in different vacua of N=2 supersymmetric QCD deformed by the mass term \mu for the adjoint matter. This deformation breaks supersymmetry down to N=1 and, at large \mu, the theory flows to N=1 SQCD. We focus on dynamical scenarios which can serve as prototypes of what we observe in real-world QCD. The so-called r=N vacuum is especially promising in this perspective. In this vacuum an "instead-of-confinement" phase was identified previously, which is qualitatively close to the conventional QCD confinement: the quarks and gauge bosons screened at weak coupling, at strong coupling evolve into monopole-antimonopole pairs confined by non-Abelian strings. We review genesis of this picture.