Topological Aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics

TL;DR

This paper explores the topological features of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) that lead to confinement, emphasizing the role of magnetic monopoles and the Abelian projection method in understanding confinement mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of confinement in SU(2) gauge theories and discusses the topological origins of color confinement in QCD.

Findings

Confinement can be attributed to topological magnetic monopoles.

The Abelian projection offers a framework to understand confinement.

Electrons and neutrinos can be viewed as bound states in SU(2) theory.

Abstract

Absolute confinement of its color charges is a natural property of gauge theories such as quantum chromodynamics. On the one hand, it can be attributed to the existence of color-magnetic monopoles, a topological feature of the theory, but one can also maintain that all non-Abelian gauge theories confine. It is illustrated how ``confinement'' works in the SU(2) sector of the Standard Model, and why for example the electron and its neutrino can be viewed as SU(2)-hadronic bound states rather than a gauge doublet. The mechanism called `Abelian projection' then puts the Abelian sector of any gauge theory on a separate footing.