Color Confinement and Massive Gluons

TL;DR

This paper explores two phases in QCD, demonstrating that in the confinement phase, gluons become massive and color confinement occurs, while in the deconfinement phase, gluons are massless and confinement is absent.

Contribution

It introduces a phase-based interpretation of QCD, showing how gauge choices lead to different confinement and gluon mass properties.

Findings

In the confinement phase, gluons are massive.

Color confinement is realized in the confinement phase.

Gluons remain massless in the deconfinement phase.

Abstract

Color confinement is one of the central issues in QCD so that there are various interpretations of this feature. In this paper we have adopted the interpretation that colored particles are not subject to observation just because colored states are unphysical in the sense of Eq. (2.16). It is shown that there are two phases in QCD distinguished by different choices of the gauge parameter. In one phase, called the "confinement phase", color confinement is realized and gluons turn out to be massive. In the other phase, called the "deconfinement phase", color confinement is not realized, but the gluons remain massless.