We analyse what happens with two merging constituent monopoles for the SU(3) caloron. Identified through degenerate eigenvalues (the singularities or defects of the abelian projection) of the Polyakov loop, it follows that there are defects that are not directly related to the actual constituent monopoles.
@article{arxiv.hep-lat/0108027,
title = {Abelian projected monopoles - to be or not to be},
author = {Pierre van Baal},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-lat/0108027},
year = {2007}
}