Domain walls and deconfinement: a semiclassical picture of discrete anomaly inflow

TL;DR

This paper investigates quark deconfinement on domain walls in supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory, revealing that Wilson loops exhibit perimeter law behavior and providing a microscopic understanding of anomaly inflow.

Contribution

It extends the semiclassical picture of deconfinement to all N and k, analyzing BPS domain walls and their electric fluxes in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.

Findings

Wilson loops of nonzero N-ality follow perimeter law on all k-walls

Numerical analysis of BPS domain walls connecting vacua k units apart

Confirmation of the semiclassical deconfinement picture for all N and k

Abstract

We study the physics of quark deconfinement on domain walls in four-dimensional supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory, compactified on a small circle with supersymmetric boundary conditions. We numerically examine the properties of BPS domain walls connecting vacua k units apart. We also determine their electric fluxes and use the results to show that Wilson loops of any nonzero N-ality exhibit perimeter law on all k-walls. Our results confirm and extend, to all N and k, the validity of the semiclassical picture of deconfinement of Anber, Sulejmanpasic and one of us (EP), arXiv:1501.06773, providing a microscopic explanation of mixed 0-form/1-form anomaly inflow.