Dual approaches for defects condensation

We review two methods used to approach the condensation of defects phenomenon. Analyzing in details their structure, we show that in the limit where the defects proliferate until occupy the whole space these two methods are dual equivalent prescriptions to obtain an effective theory for the phase where the defects (like monopoles or vortices) are completely condensed, starting from the fundamental theory defined in the normal phase where the defects are diluted.Comment: 7 pages, major modifications. Version accepted for publication in Physics Letters

Massive photons and Dirac monopoles: electric condensate and magnetic confinement

We use the generalized Julia-Toulouse approach (GJTA) for condensation of topological currents (charges or defects) to argue that massive photons can coexist consistently with Dirac monopoles. The Proca theory is obtained here via GJTA as a low energy effective theory describing an electric condensate and the mass of the vector boson is responsible for generating a Meissner effect which confines the magnetic defects in monopole-antimonopole pairs connected by physical open magnetic vortices described by Dirac brane invariants, instead of Dirac strings.Comment: 6 pages, version accepted for publication in Physics Letters

Vanishing DC holographic conductivity from a magnetic monopole condensate

We show how to obtain a vanishing DC conductivity in 3-dimensional strongly coupled QFT's using a massive 2-form field in the bulk that satisfies a special kind of boundary condition. The real and imaginary parts of the AC conductivity are evaluated in this holographic setup and we show that the DC conductivity identically vanishes even for an arbitrarily small (though nonzero) value of the 2-form mass in the bulk. We identify the bulk action of the massive 2-form with an effective theory describing a phase in which magnetic monopoles have condensed in the bulk. Our results indicate that a condensate of magnetic monopoles in a 4-dimensional bulk leads to a vanishing DC holographic conductivity in 3-dimensional strongly coupled QFT's.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in JHE

The BF theory as an electric Julia-Toulouse condensate

The Julia-Toulouse mechanism is used to show that the topological Abelian BF term may be induced by the condensation of electric charges. As an application we discuss the subtle question of including consistently magnetic defects into the Maxwell-BF theory in a way to avoid the usual problems of current conservation, charge quantization, Elitzur's theorem violation and the reality of the Dirac brane, produced by the non-minimal coupling. We also discuss a new way of obtaining the Dirac's veto, which is based on the so-called Dirac brane symmetry.Comment: 5 pages, reorganized and shortened version accepted for publication in the Brief Reports section of Physical Review

U(1) effective confinement theory from SU(2) restricted gauge theory via the Julia-Toulouse Approach

We derive an U(1) effective theory of color confinement by applying the so-called Julia-Toulouse Approach for defects condensation to the SU(2) restricted gauge theory defined by means of the Cho decomposition of the non-abelian connection. Cho's geometric construction naturally displays the topological degrees of freedom of the theory and can be used to put the Yang-Mills action into an abelianized form under certain conditions. On the other hand, the use of the Julia-Toulouse prescription to deal with the monopole condensation leads to an effective action describing the phase whose dynamics is dominated by the magnetic condensate. The effective theory we found describes the interaction between external electric currents displaying a short-range Yukawa interaction plus a linear confinement term that governs the long distance physics.Comment: 7 page