From center-vortex ensembles to the confining flux tube

TL;DR

This review explores how ensembles of center vortices in SU(N) Yang-Mills theory can describe confining flux tubes, emphasizing recent advances in modeling, effective field representations, and lattice comparisons to understand confinement.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of including nonoriented vortices and non-Abelian degrees in models, advancing the understanding of confinement mechanisms in gauge theories.

Findings

Inclusion of nonoriented vortices affects flux tube properties.

Effective field models can replicate lattice results.

Topological solitons emerge from vortex ensembles.

Abstract

In this review, we discuss the present status of the description of confining flux tubes in SU(N) pure Yang-Mills theory in terms of ensembles of percolating center vortices. This is based on three main pillars: modelling in the continuum the ensemble components detected in the lattice, the derivation of effective field representations, and contrasting the associated properties with Monte Carlo lattice results. The integration of the present knowledge about these points is essential to get closer to a unified physical picture for confinement. Here, we shall emphasize the last advances, which point to the importance of including the nonoriented center-vortex component and non-Abelian degrees when modelling the center-vortex ensemble measure. These inputs are responsible for the emergence of topological solitons and the possibility of accommodating the asymptotic scaling properties of the confining string tension.