Topological Degrees of Freedom and Color Confinement in Lattice Gauge Theories

• Grant number: 24/19766-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: January 31, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal Investigator: Tereza Cristina da Rocha Mendes
• Grantee: Rafael Carlos Silva Tonhon
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Color confinement is still a challenging problem in modern physics tied to the non-perturbative sector of the Yang-Mills theory. Among the various ideas proposed to explain this mechanism, the center vortex scenario, in which the Yang-Mills vacuum is dominated by color-magnetic field flux lines, successfully reproduces the color confinement phenomenology. Although the mechanism is not completely understood and important questions are yet to be answered. Therefore, this project proposes the study of the color confinement problem in the Yang-Mills theory via the topological degrees of freedom, with the aim of mapping the center vortex contribution to the confinement, studying its correlation with chromo-magnetic monopoles, and dealing with the open questions in the field. The study can be extended to the complete QCD case as part of the project ``QCD na Rede no Brasil (BLQCD): De Fundamentos a Aplicações'', under analysis on FAPESP.