't Hooft Loops, Electric Flux Sectors and Confinement in SU(2) Yang-Mills Theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the behavior of electric flux sectors in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory using 't Hooft loops, demonstrating confinement and flux condensation across phases, and analyzing critical scaling near the phase transition.

Contribution

It introduces a lattice-based method using 't Hooft loops to study electric flux sectors and provides quantitative evidence for confinement, flux condensation, and universal critical behavior.

Findings

Evidence for the mass gap in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

Demonstration of electric flux confinement at low temperature

Observation of flux condensation at high temperature

Abstract

We use 't Hooft loops of maximal size on finite lattices to calculate the free energy in the sectors of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with fixed electric flux as a function of temperature and (spatial) volume. Our results provide evidence for the mass gap. The confinement of electric fluxes in the low temperature phase and their condensation in the high temperature phase are demonstrated. In a surprisingly large scaling window around criticality, the transition is quantitatively well described by universal exponents and amplitude ratios relating the properties of the two phases.