Correlations of center flux in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates the role of center vortices in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, showing their dominance in low-momentum gluon behavior, their temperature-dependent screening mass, and implications for confinement and phase transition.

Contribution

It introduces a method to isolate and analyze center vortex contributions to the gluon propagator and explores their behavior across the deconfinement transition.

Findings

Center vortex propagator dominates low-momentum gluon propagator.

Screening mass of vortex field vanishes above critical temperature.

Ghost propagator remains infrared finite, indicating no confinement signal.

Abstract

By using the method of center projection the center vortex part of the gauge field is isolated and its propagator is evaluated in the center Landau gauge, which minimizes the open 3-dimensional Dirac volumes of non-trivial center links bounded by the closed 2-dimensional center vortex surfaces. The center field propagator is found to dominate the gluon propagator (in Landau gauge) in the low momentum regime and to give rise to an OPE correction to the latter of $\sqrt{\sigma} /p^3 $.The screening mass of the center vortex field vanishes above the critical temperature of the deconfinement phase transition, which naturally explains the second order nature of this transition consistently with the vortex picture. Finally, the ghost propagator of maximal center gauge is found to be infrared finite and thus shows no signal of confinement.