Mixed colour states in QCD confining vacuum

TL;DR

This paper models quark confinement in QCD as a decoherence process where pure color states become mixed, with the decoherence rate linked to string tension and charge separation, providing insights into color state purity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel quantum decoherence framework for understanding quark confinement in QCD, connecting string tension to decoherence dynamics.

Findings

Decoherence rate proportional to string tension and charge distance

Purity of color states quantified during confinement

Confinement modeled as decoherence of pure states

Abstract

We show that confinement of spinless heavy quarks in fundamental representation of $SU(N_{c})$ gauge group can be treated as decoherence of pure colour state into a white mixture of states. Decoherence rate is found to be proportional to the tension of QCD string and the distance between colour charges. The purity of colour states is calculated.