A topological interpretation of the color charge

TL;DR

This paper proposes a topological framework for understanding color charge in quarks, suggesting that different colors correspond to distinct vacuum backgrounds on a non-trivial manifold, leading to a novel confinement mechanism.

Contribution

It introduces a topological model linking color charge to manifold topology and vacuum states, offering a new perspective on quark confinement.

Findings

Different quark colors inhabit distinct topological vacuum backgrounds.

The model explains quark confinement without affecting baryons.

Topological assumptions align with some cosmological data.

Abstract

We develop a theory on a topologically non-trivial manifold which leads to different vacuum backgrounds at the field level. The different colors of the same quark flavor live in different backgrounds generated by the action of the torsion subgroup of H^2(M,2\pi Z) on H^2(M,2\pi Z) itself. This topological separation leads to a quark confinement mechanism which does not apply to the baryons as they turn out to live on the same vacuum state. The theory makes some topological assumptions on the spacetime manifold which are compared with the available data on the topology of the Universe.