Topological charge of the Yang-Mills vacuum in terms of center vortices

• Grant number: 24/20896-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: May 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal Investigator: Gastão Inácio Krein
• Grantee: David Rosa Junior
• Supervisor: Hugo Reinhardt
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física Teórica (IFT). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/18483-0 - Infrared properties of the strong interaction: topological configurations and entanglement, BP.PD

Abstract

The understanding of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in the infrared regime is related to fundamental questions, such as the confinement of the quarks and gluons and the origin of the mass of the proton and the neutron. QCD is strongly coupled in this regimeand techniques other than the traditional expansion in powers of the coupling are necessary to investigate these fundamental questions. In this respect, first-principles, lattice QCD calculations revealed that gluon field configurations known as center vortices play a essential role in the infrared regime. Recently, a wavefunctional peaked at center vortices for the gluonic vacuum was proposed. In this project, we will investigate the properties of the Yang-Mills vacuum in this framework.