99 research outputs found
The potential of the effective Polyakov line action from the underlying lattice gauge theory
I adapt a numerical method, previously applied to investigate the Yang-Mills
vacuum wavefunctional, to the problem of extracting the effective Polyakov line
action from SU(N) lattice gauge theories, with or without matter fields. The
method can be used to find the variation of the effective Polyakov line action
along any trajectory in field configuration space; this information is
sufficient to determine the potential term in the action, and strongly
constrains the possible form of the kinetic term. The technique is illustrated
for both pure and gauge-Higgs SU(2) lattice gauge theory at finite temperature.
A surprise, in the pure gauge theory, is that the potential of the
corresponding Polyakov line action contains a non-analytic (yet
center-symmetric) term proportional to |P|^3, where P is the trace of the
Polyakov line at a given point, in addition to the expected analytic terms
proportional to even powers of P.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figure
Confinement from Center Vortices: A review of old and new results
I briefly review the numerical evidence, some old and some quite recent, in
favor of the center vortex theory of confinement.Comment: Invited talk at the Confinement 12 meeting, Thessaloniki, Greece,
Aug. 2016. 12 pages, 8 figure
Scaling properties of Wilson loops pierced by P-vortices
P-vortices, in an SU(N) lattice gauge theory, are excitations on the
center-projected Z(N) lattice. We study the ratio of expectation values of
SU(2) Wilson loops, on the unprojected lattice, linked to a single P-vortex, to
that of Wilson loops which are not linked to any P-vortices. When these ratios
are plotted versus loop area in physical units, for a range of lattice
couplings, it is found that the points fall approximately on a single curve,
consistent with scaling. We also find that the ratios are rather insensitive to
the point where the minimal area of the loop is pierced by the P-vortex.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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