Gravitational Flux Tubes

TL;DR

This paper explores flux tube solutions in multidimensional gravity and gauge theories, revealing structures similar to QCD confinement, with magnetic charges and dual relationships between charge and coupling.

Contribution

It demonstrates classical flux tube solutions in Kaluza-Klein and Einstein-Yang-Mills theories that resemble QCD flux tubes and confinement features.

Findings

Flux tube solutions exist in multidimensional gravity and gauge theories.

These solutions exhibit magnetic charges with dual relationships to gauge coupling.

Features resemble QCD confinement mechanisms.

Abstract

By studying multidimensional Kaluza-Klein theories, or gravity plus U(1) or SU(2) gauge fields it is shown that these theories possess similar flux tube solutions. The gauge field which fills the tube geometry of these solutions leads to a comparision with the flux tube structures in QCD. These solutions also carry a ``magnetic'' charge, Q, which for the SU(2) Einstein-Yang-Mills (EYM) system exhibits a dual relationship with the Yang-Mills gauge coupling, g, ($Q=1/g$). As $Q \to 0$ or $Q \to \infty$, $g \to \infty$ or $g \to 0$ respectively. Thus within this classical EYM field theory we find solutions which have features - flux tubes, magnetic charges, large value of the gauge coupling - that are similar to the key ingredients of confinement in QCD.