Towards a string representation of infrared SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

TL;DR

This paper derives an effective infrared action for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory using heat kernel expansion, supporting the idea that at large distances the theory resembles knotted string-like fluxtubes as solitons.

Contribution

It introduces a new effective action for SU(2) Yang-Mills in the infrared, linking it to knotted string-like solitons, advancing understanding of non-perturbative phenomena.

Findings

Supports the string-like fluxtube picture at large distances

Derives an effective action using heat kernel expansion

Links solitons to knotted string configurations

Abstract

We employ a heat kernel expansion to derive an effective action that describes four dimensional SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in the infrared limit. Our result supports the proposal that at large distances the theory is approximated by the dynamics of knotted string-like fluxtubes which appear as solitons in the effective theory.