University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Topological Objects and Confinement in Non-Abelian Lattice Gauge Theory

Tucker, William Walden

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/35262

Description

Title
Topological Objects and Confinement in Non-Abelian Lattice Gauge Theory
Author(s)
Tucker, William Walden
Issue Date
2005
Department of Study
Physics
Discipline
Physics
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Topological
  • abelian
  • Lattice Gauge
  • monopoles
  • yang-mills
  • monte carlo
  • asymbiotic
  • quenched approximations
  • quark
  • antiquark
  • quark-antiquark
  • wilson loop
  • nielson-olesen
  • homotopy
  • invariants
  • polyakov
  • dirac
  • superconductor
  • gribov effect
  • submanifold
  • magnetic currents
  • overrelaxation
Language
en
Abstract
We use lattice methods to study the connection between topological objects and the confining potential in SU(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills theories. We use Monte Carlo techniques, generating and performing measurements on sample configurations of SU(2) and SU(3) gauge fields. We isolate topological objects, specifically Abelian monopoles and center vortices, in these configurations. We then measure the contribution to the string tension from these objects, and compare the results to “full” measurements made on the original configurations. In addition we investigate the effects of gauge ambiguities (Gribov effects) and cooling on these sets of measurements. For the case of SU(2) lattice gauge theory, our results from monopoles agree with full values but are somewhat lower when gauge ambiguities are taken into account. The situation is not stable under cooling. When we carry out analogous procedures on sample SU(3) lattice configurations, we find disagreement between full SU(3) values and those from topological objects, with our results from topological objects being lower than the full SU(3) values. This disagreement becomes more substantial after the effects of gauge ambiguities are taken into account. We conclude that present methods for identifying and extracting topological objects are inadequate for explaining confinement in the realistic case of an SU(3) gauge group.
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/35262
Copyright and License Information
2005 Tucker ©

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