The Magnetic Monopole Seventy-Five Years Later

TL;DR

This paper reviews the recent progress in understanding non-Abelian monopoles in supersymmetric theories, highlighting their role in confinement and symmetry breaking, and clarifying their semiclassical nature and quantum properties.

Contribution

It provides an introductory overview of the latest developments in the study of non-Abelian monopoles and their significance in strongly interacting quantum field theories.

Findings

Non-Abelian monopoles are key in confinement mechanisms.

They carry non-Abelian dual magnetic charges.

Recent developments clarify their semiclassical and quantum nature.

Abstract

Non-Abelian monopoles are present in the fully quantum mechanical low-energy effective action of many solvable supersymmetric theories. They behave perfectly as pointlike particles carrying non-Abelian dual magnetic charges. They play a crucial role in confinement and in dynamical symmetry breaking in these theories. There is a natural identification of these excitations within the semiclassical approach, which involves the flavor symmetry in an essential manner. We review, in an introductory fashion, the recent development which has led to a better understanding of the nature of non-Abelian monopoles and of their role in confinement and dynamical symmetry breaking in strongly interacting theories.