Topological objects in QCD

Topological excitations are prominent candidates for explaining nonperturbative effects in QCD like confinement. In these lectures, I cover both formal treatments and applications of topological objects. The typical phenomena like BPS bounds, topology, the semiclassical approximation and chiral fermions are introduced by virtue of kinks. Then I proceed in higher dimensions with magnetic monopoles and instantons and special emphasis on calorons. Analytical aspects are discussed and an overview over models based on these objects as well as lattice results is given.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures; Lectures given at 45th Internationale Universitaetswochen fuer Theoretische Physik (International University School of Theoretical Physics): Conceptual and Numerical Challenges in Femto- and Peta-Scale Physics, Schladming, Styria, Austria, 24 Feb - 3 Mar 200

On orientations for gauge-theoretic moduli spaces

Let $X$ be a compact manifold, $D$ a real elliptic operator on $X$, $G$ a Lie group, $P\to X$ a principal $G$-bundle, and ${\mathcal B}_P$ the infinite-dimensional moduli space of all connections $\nabla_P$ on $P$ modulo gauge, as a topological stack. For each $[\nabla_P]\in{\mathcal B}_P$, we can consider the twisted elliptic operator $D^{\nabla_{Ad(P)}}$ on X. This is a continuous family of elliptic operators over the base ${\mathcal B}_P$, and so has an orientation bundle $O^D_P\to{\mathcal B}_P$, a principal ${\mathbb Z}_2$-bundle parametrizing orientations of Ker$D^{\nabla_{Ad(P)}}\oplus$Coker$D^{\nabla_{Ad(P)}}$ at each $[\nabla_P]$. An orientation on $({\mathcal B}_P,D)$ is a trivialization $O^D_P\cong{\mathcal B}_P\times{\mathbb Z}_2$. In gauge theory one studies moduli spaces $\mathcal M$ of connections $\nabla_P$ on $P$ satisfying some curvature condition, such as anti-self-dual instantons on Riemannian 4-manifolds $(X, g)$. Under good conditions $\mathcal M$ is a smooth manifold, and orientations on $({\mathcal B}_P,D)$ pull back to orientations on $\mathcal M$ in the usual sense under the inclusion ${\mathcal M}\hookrightarrow{\mathcal B}_P$. This is important in areas such as Donaldson theory, where one needs an orientation on $\mathcal M$ to define enumerative invariants. We explain a package of techniques, some known and some new, for proving orientability and constructing canonical orientations on $({\mathcal B}_P,D)$, after fixing some algebro-topological information on $X$. We use these to construct canonical orientations on gauge theory moduli spaces, including new results for moduli spaces of flat connections on 2- and 3-manifolds, instantons, Kapustin-Witten and Vafa-Witten equations on 4-manifolds, and the Haydys-Witten equations on 5-manifolds. Two sequels arXiv:1811.02405, arXiv:1811.09658 discuss orientations in 7 and 8 dimensions.Comment: 60 pages. (v2) sections 2.3-2.5 rewritte

Colloidal interactions in two dimensional nematics

The interaction between two disks immersed in a 2D nematic is investigated (i) analitically using the tensor order parameter formalism for the nematic configuration around isolated disks and (ii) numerically using finite element methods with adaptive meshing to minimize the corresponding Landau-de Gennes free energy. For strong homeotropic anchoring, each disk generates a pair of defects with one-half topological charge responsible for the 2D quadrupolar interaction between the disks at large distances. At short distance, the position of the defects may change, leading to unexpected complex interactions with the quadrupolar repulsive interactions becoming attractive. This short range attraction in all directions is still anisotropic. As the distance between the disks decreases their preferred relative orientation with respect to the far-field nematic director changes from oblique to perpendicular.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

String theory and the Kauffman polynomial

We propose a new, precise integrality conjecture for the colored Kauffman polynomial of knots and links inspired by large N dualities and the structure of topological string theory on orientifolds. According to this conjecture, the natural knot invariant in an unoriented theory involves both the colored Kauffman polynomial and the colored HOMFLY polynomial for composite representations, i.e. it involves the full HOMFLY skein of the annulus. The conjecture sheds new light on the relationship between the Kauffman and the HOMFLY polynomials, and it implies for example Rudolph's theorem. We provide various non-trivial tests of the conjecture and we sketch the string theory arguments that lead to it.Comment: 36 pages, many figures; references and examples added, typos corrected, final version to appear in CM

Center vortex model for the infrared sector of Yang-Mills theory - Topological Susceptibility

A definition of the Pontryagin index for SU(2) center vortex world-surfaces composed of plaquettes on a hypercubic lattice is constructed. It is used to evaluate the topological susceptibility in a previously defined random surface model for vortices, the parameters of which have been fixed such as to reproduce the confinement properties of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. A prediction for the topological susceptibility is obtained which is compatible with measurements of this quantity in lattice Yang-Mills theory.Comment: 13 revtex pages, 2 ps figures included via eps

Surface embedding, topology and dualization for spin networks

Spin networks are graphs derived from 3nj symbols of angular momentum. The surface embedding, the topology and dualization of these networks are considered. Embeddings into compact surfaces include the orientable sphere S^2 and the torus T, and the not orientable projective space P^2 and Klein's bottle K. Two families of 3nj graphs admit embeddings of minimal genus into S^2 and P^2. Their dual 2-skeletons are shown to be triangulations of these surfaces.Comment: LaTeX 17 pages, 6 eps figures (late submission to arxiv.org