Related papers: World-Sheet Defects, Strings, and Quark Confinemen…
We develop quantization aspects of our Liouville approach to non-critical strings, proposing a path-integral formulation of a second quantization of string theory, that incorporates naturally the couplings of string sources to background…
We propose a new approach towards the understanding of confinement. Starting from an anisotropic five dimensional pure gauge theory, we approach a second order phase transition where the system reduces dimensionally. Dimensional reduction…
In this Letter we use the Julia-Toulouse approach for condensation of defects in order to obtain an effective confinement theory for external chromoelectric probe charges in SU(3) gauge theory in the regime with condensed chromomagnetic…
We first apply the transformation of mixing azimuthal and internal coordinate to the 11D M-theory with a stack N M2-branes to find the spacetime of a stack of N D2-branes with Melvin one-form in 10D IIA string theory, after the Kaluza-Klein…
We review recent developments in the vortex picture of confinement. We discuss numerical simulations demonstrating that the entire asymptotic string tension is due to vortex-induced fluctuations of the Wilson loop. Analytical and numerical…
We investigate the description of quark confinement in terms of confining strings or flux tubes. We show that compact QED with a topological $\theta$-term, in the dyon condensation phase, is described by a massive two-form field $B_{\mu…
Non-Abelian flux-tube (string) solutions carrying global currents are found in the bosonic sector of 4-dimensional N=2 super-symmetric gauge theories. The specific model considered here posseses U(2)local x SU(2)global symmetry, with two…
We consider contributions to the heavy quark potential, in the AdS/CFT approach to SU(N) gauge theory, which arise from first order fluctuations of the associated worldsheet in anti-deSitter space. The gaussian fluctuations occur around a…
We analyze conformal blocks with multiple (semi-)degenerate field insertions in Liouville/Toda conformal field theories an show that their vector space is fully reproduced by the four-dimensional limit of open topological string amplitudes…
We consider generalizations of the AdS/CFT correspondence in which probe branes are embedded in gravity backgrounds dual to either conformal or confining gauge theories. These correspond to defect conformal field theories (dCFT) or QCD-like…
We present the "classical" Nielsen-Olesen vortex solution on a warped five dimensional space time, where we solved the effective four-dimensional equations from the five-dimensional equations together with the junction and boundary…
We reconsider the problem of discretising the worldsheet for the gauge-fixed Green-Schwarz superstring on a null cusp background, and present a setup which fully preserves its global $U(1)\times SU(4)$ symmetry. We discuss divergences by…
String representations of the Wilson loop are constructed in the SU(N)-version of compact QED in three and four dimensions. This is done exactly in the case of the fundamental Wilson loop and in the large-N limit in the case of the adjoint…
Effective string theory has shown its universal power in the prediction of the spectrum of low-lying excited states of confining strings. Here we study confining flux tubes in $\mathbb{Z}_N$ gauge theories. For the $N=2$ theory, which…
The confining string in presence of dynamical quarks can behave in different ways, depending on the quark masses and on the number N_f N_c of charge species. For light masses and large N_f N_c the creation of quark pairs produces…
The new generalization of the gauge interaction for the bosonic strings is found. We consider some quasiequivariant maps from the space of metrics on the worldsheet to the space of $n$-tuples of one- and two-dimensional loops. The…
The uniquess of the effective actions describing 4D SU(2) and SU(3) continuum, infinite-volume Yang-Mills thermodynamics in their deconfining and preconfining phases is made explicit. Subsequently, the spatial string tension is computed in…
We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to discuss the response of an accelerated observer to the quantum vacuum fluctuations. In particular, we study heavy quarks probing a strongly coupled CFT by analysing strings moving in AdS. We propose…
We discuss recent developments for exact reformulations of lattice field theories in terms of worldlines and worldsheets. In particular we focus on a strategy which is applicable also to non-abelian theories: traces and matrix/vector…
Gauge theories form the foundation of the Standard Model of particle physics. These theories can exhibit confinement, where charged particles only occur in bound states, connected by flux strings whose energy grows linearly with separation.…