On the stochastic confinement in SU(2) lattice gauge theory

Abstract

We extend the Olesen approach to confinement, originally proposed for SU(∞) gauge theory, to the SU(2) group. We perform Monte Carlo calculations of the spectral density, which describes the distribution of eigenvalues of the Wilson loop in the SU(2) lattice gauge theory (LGT), for square loops up to size 4 × 4. Our results indicate the onset of disorder in the 4-dimensional LGT so that at weak coupling confinement is due to non-abelian fluctuations of the gauge field. We describe the Monte Carlo data by formulae of the 2-dimensional LGT with some effective coupling constant. We formulate how this effective coupling constant should depend on the size of the loop in order that the Olesen hypothesis about the dimensional reduction (i.e. approximate reduction of the 4-dimensional LGT to the effective 2-dimensional LGT in the confinement region) would be held. Using the strong-coupling expansion where the Olesen hypothesis holds in fourteen orders, we perform quantitative estimates. The density of simple vortices up to size 4 × 4 is calculated. A connection between the definitions of spectral densities for the SU(∞) and SU(2) groups is considered. Explicit formulae for the spectral density in the 2-dimensional SU(2) LGT are derived.