Center vortices, magnetic condensate and confinement in a simple gauge system

The confining mechanisms of 't Hooft and Mandelstam have a simple microscopic realization in 3D Z2 gauge theory: the center vortex and the magnetic monopole condensation are associated, in the set of configurations contributing to the confining phase, to the presence of two kinds of infinite clusters. These generate the area law of the large Wilson loops and the universal finite size effects produced by the quantum fluctuations of the bosonic string describing the infrared behavior of the flux tube.Comment: 8 pages, 4 eps figures. Contributed to NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Confinement, Topology, and other Nonperturbative Aspects of QCD, Stara Lesna, Slovakia, 21-27 Jan 200

The lowest modes around Gaussian solutions of tensor models and the general relativity

In the previous paper, the number distribution of the low-lying spectra around Gaussian solutions representing various dimensional fuzzy tori of a tensor model was numerically shown to be in accordance with the general relativity on tori. In this paper, I perform more detailed numerical analysis of the properties of the modes for two-dimensional fuzzy tori, and obtain conclusive evidences for the agreement. Under a proposed correspondence between the rank-three tensor in tensor models and the metric tensor in the general relativity, conclusive agreement is obtained between the profiles of the low-lying modes in a tensor model and the metric modes transverse to the general coordinate transformation. Moreover, the low-lying modes are shown to be well on a massless trajectory with quartic momentum dependence in the tensor model. This is in agreement with that the lowest momentum dependence of metric fluctuations in the general relativity will come from the R^2-term, since the R-term is topological in two dimensions. These evidences support the idea that the low-lying low-momentum dynamics around the Gaussian solutions of tensor models is described by the general relativity. I also propose a renormalization procedure for tensor models. A classical application of the procedure makes the patterns of the low-lying spectra drastically clearer, and suggests also the existence of massive trajectories.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures, Added references, minor corrections, a misleading figure replace

Dimensional reduction and the phase diagram of 5d Yang-Mills theory

We present a non-perturbative study of the phase diagram of 5d SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with one compact extra dimension on the lattice. Assuming at least a modest scale separation between the cutoff and the compactification scales leads to an exponential separation between the compactification scale and the four-dimensional correlation length. While we demonstrate that it is not possible to take a full five-dimensional continuum limit, this dynamical generation of scale hierarchy opens up the possibility for us to make limited, but non-perturbative, predictions about continuum theories whose low-energy sector is described by an effective 5d Yang-Mills theory.Comment: 7 pages. Presented at the XXVII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 26-31, 2009, Peking University, Beijing, Chin

Thermodynamics of the QCD plasma and the large-N limit

The equilibrium thermodynamic properties of the SU(N) plasma at finite temperature are studied non-perturbatively in the large-N limit, via lattice simulations. We present high-precision numerical results for the pressure, trace of the energy-momentum tensor, energy density and entropy density of SU(N) Yang-Mills theories with N=3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 colors, in a temperature range from 0.8T_c to 3.4T_c (where T_c denotes the critical deconfinement temperature). The results, normalized according to the number of gluons, show a very mild dependence on N, supporting the idea that the dynamics of the strongly-interacting QCD plasma could admit a description based on large-N models. We compare our numerical data with general expectations about the thermal behavior of the deconfined gluon plasma and with various theoretical descriptions, including, in particular, the improved holographic QCD model recently proposed by Kiritsis and collaborators. We also comment on the relevance of an AdS/CFT description for the QCD plasma in a phenomenologically interesting temperature range where the system, while still strongly-coupled, approaches a `quasi-conformal' regime characterized by approximate scale invariance. Finally, we perform an extrapolation of our results to the N to $\infty$ limit.Comment: 1+38 pages, 13 eps figures; v2: added reference

Effective string picture for confinement at finite temperature: theoretical predictions and high precision numerical results

The effective string picture of confinement is used to derive theoretical predictions for the interquark potential at finite temperature. At short distances, the leading string correction to the linear confining potential between a heavy quark-antiquark pair is the "L\"uscher term''. We assume a Nambu--Goto effective string action, and work out subleading contributions in an analytical way. We discuss the contribution given by a possible ``boundary term'' in the effective action, comparing these predictions with results from simulations of lattice $Z_2$ gauge theory in three dimensions, obtained with an algorithm which exploits the duality of the $Z_2$ gauge model with the Ising spin model.Comment: Lattice2003(nonzero), 3 pages, 2 figure

Low-lying Dirac eigenmodes and monopoles in 3+1D compact QED

We study the properties of low-lying Dirac modes in quenched compact QED at $\beta =1.01$, employing $12^3\times N_t$ ($N_t =4,6,8,10,12$) lattices and the overlap formalism for the fermion action. We pay attention to the spatial distributions of low-lying Dirac modes below and above the ``phase transition temperature'' $T_c$. Near-zero modes are found to have universal anti-correlations with monopole currents, and are found to lose their temporal structures above $T_c$ exhibiting stronger spatial localization properties. We also study the nearest-neighbor level spacing distribution of Dirac eigenvalues and find a Wigner-Poisson transition.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

On the linear increase of the flux tube thickness near the deconfinement transition

We study the flux tube thickness of a generic Lattice Gauge Theory near the deconfining phase transition. It is well known that the effective string model predicts a logarithmic increase of the flux tube thickness as a function of the interquark distance for any confining LGT at zero temperature. It is perhaps less known that this same model predicts a linear increase in the vicinity of the deconfinement transition. We present a precise derivation of this result and compare it with a set of high precision simulations in the case of the 3d gauge Ising model.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, minor changes. Accepted for publication in JHE

A numerical study of confinement in compact QED

Compact U(1) lattice gauge theory in four dimensions is studied by means of an efficient algorithm which exploits the duality transformation properties of the model. We focus our attention onto the confining regime, considering the interquark potential and force, and the electric field induced by two infinitely heavy sources. We consider both the zero and finite temperature setting, and compare the theoretical predictions derived from the effective string model and the dual superconductor scenario to the numerical results.Comment: 31 pages, 16 eps figures; v2: references added; v3: footnote added, summation ranges in section 4 made explicit, version published in JHE