Correlating confinement to topological fluctuations near the crossover transition in QCD

TL;DR

This study reveals strong correlations between topological fluctuations and the Polyakov loop near the QCD crossover, linking topology to confinement through lattice techniques and instanton-dyon insights.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed lattice analysis of the correlation between topological hot spots and Polyakov loop fluctuations near the QCD transition.

Findings

Strong (anti)correlations between topological hot spots and Polyakov loop.

Polyakov loop fluctuations are repelled around topological zero modes.

Supports the role of topological objects in confinement mechanisms.

Abstract

We show the existence of strong (anti)correlations between the topological hot spots and the local values of the trace of the Polyakov loop in $2+1$ flavor QCD with physical quark mass, in the vicinity of the crossover transition corresponding to the simultaneous restoration of chiral symmetry and deconfinement. Using sophisticated lattice techniques, we have carefully identified the topological hot spots using quark zero modes and measured the short-distance fluctuations of the Polyakov loop about them, showing how the latter is repelled quite strongly around the peak of the zero modes. Though we could explain some aspects of these correlations within the instanton-dyon picture, our work sets the stage for a larger goal towards a systematic study of the role of different topological species that interact with the Polyakov loop, establishing the strong connection between topology and confinement.