Related papers: Center clusters and their percolation properties i…
Recent lattice calculations performed at zero temperature and in the maximal center gauge indicate that quark confinement can be understood in this gauge as due to fluctuations in the number of magnetic vortices piercing a given Wilson…
While the Polyakov loop is an order parameter of the deconfinement transition in the heavy quark mass regime of QCD, its sensitivity to the deconfinement of light, dynamical quarks in QCD is not apparent. On the other hand, the quark mass…
We analyze the branching of center vortices in $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theory in maximal center gauge. When properly normalized, we can define a branching probability that turns out to be independent of the lattice spacing (in the limited…
The properties of the pure-site clusters of spin models, i.e. the clusters which are obtained by joining nearest-neighbour spins of the same sign, are here investigated. In the Ising model in two dimensions it is known that such clusters…
We present a renormalization procedure for Polyakov loops which explicitly implements the fact that the renormalization constant depends only on the ultraviolet cutoff. Using this we study the renormalized Polyakov loops in all…
We compare SU(2) Polyakov loop models with different effective actions with data from full two-color QCD simulations around and above the critical temperature. We then apply the effective theories at finite temperature and density to…
The first order transition between the confining and the center symmetry breaking phases of the SU(3) Yang-Mills theory is marked by discontinuities in various thermodynamics functions, such as the energy density or the value of the…
Numerical studies of the QCD phase diagram at finite baryon chemical potential $\mu_B$ on the lattice are impeded by a sign problem. Effective Polyakov loop theories derived from lattice QCD via combined strong-coupling and hopping…
The gauge group being centreless, $G_2$ gauge theory is a good laboratory for studying the role of the centre of the group for colour confinement in Yang-Mills gauge theories. In this paper, we investigate $G_2$ pure gauge theory at finite…
The Villain form of SO(3) lattice gauge theory is studied and compared to Wilson's SU(2) theory. The topological invariants in SO(3) which correspond to twisted boundary conditions in SU(2) are discussed and lattice observables are…
We investigate the Polyakov loop in different representations of SU(3) in pure gauge at finite $T$. We discuss Casimir scaling for the Polyakov loop in the deconfined phase and test and generalize the renormalization procedure for the…
Continuous phase transitions in spin systems can be formulated as percolation of suitably defined clusters. We review this equivalence and then discuss how in a similar way, the color deconfinement transition in SU(2) gauge theory can be…
We study the formation of domain structures due to spontaneous breakdown of center symmetry at high temperatures in quenched QCD. We develop a phenomenological model for the explicit propagation of the Polyakov loop as the relevant order…
Using SU(3) lattice QCD, we study for the first time the effective potential of the Polyakov loop $\langle P \rangle$ at finite temperature, i.e., the thermodynamic potential, in the field-theoretical way. In the framework of the…
We present results for the renormalized Polyakov loop in the three lowest irreducible representations of SU(2) gauge theory at finite temperature. We will discuss their scaling behavior near $T_c$ and test Casimir scaling in the deconfined…
We present a study of the free energy of parameterized Polyakov loops P in SU(2) and SU(3) lattice gauge theory as a function of the parameters that characterize P. We explore temperatures below and above the deconfinement transition, and…
Our aim is to give a self-contained review of recent advances in the analytic description of the deconfinement transition and determination of the deconfinement temperature in lattice QCD at large N. We also include some new results, as for…
Resorting to the the Laplace center gauge (LCG) and to the Maximal-center gauge (MCG), respectively, confining vortices are defined by center projection in either case. Vortex properties are investigated in the continuum limit of SU(2)…
Lattice Yang-Mills theories at finite temperature can be mapped onto effective 3d spin systems, thus facilitating their numerical investigation. Using strong-coupling expansions we derive effective actions for Polyakov loops in the $SU(2)$…
The geometry of centre vortices is studied in $\mathrm{SU(3)}$ gauge theory at finite temperature to capture the key structural changes that occur through the deconfinement phase transition. Visualisations of the vortex structure in…