Emergent phenomena from centre vortices

TL;DR

This paper reviews the role of centre vortices in SU(3) lattice gauge theory, demonstrating their fundamental connection to quark confinement and exploring their response to dynamical quarks through numerical tests.

Contribution

It introduces a vortex identification procedure and provides the first direct numerical tests of centre vortices' response to dynamical quarks in SU(3).

Findings

Vortex-modified ensembles support confinement mechanisms.

Centre vortices are fundamental to pure gauge theory confinement.

First numerical analysis of vortex response to dynamical quarks.

Abstract

Quark confinement is perhaps the most important emergent property of the theory of quantum chromodynamics. Herein we review some key aspects of centre vortices in SU(3) lattice gauge theory. Starting from the original Monte Carlo gauge fields, a vortex identification procedure yields vortex-removed and vortex-only backgrounds. The comparison between the original `untouched' Monte Carlo gauge fields and these so called vortex-modified ensembles has provided a variety of results that support the notion that centre vortices are fundamental to confinement in pure gauge theory. For the first time we perform direct numerical tests of the response of centre vortices to the presence of dynamical quarks in SU(3).