Nuclear Physics B307 (1988) 512-530

North-Holland, Amsterdam

V A C U U M B A C K G R O U N D F I E L D S IN Q C D AS A S O U R C E
OF CONFINEMENT

Yu.A. SIMONOV
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, B. Cheremushkinskaya, 25;
117259, Moscow, USSR

Received 2 November 1987

(Revised 26 February 1988)

Quarks and gluons in the vacuum background field with a finite correlation length d are
shown to be linearly confined inside white states. The string tension for an arbitrary representa-
tion of SU(N) is obtained in terms of d and the gluon condensate and agrees with numerical data
and large N behaviour. The QCD string picture is shown to emerge asymptotically at large
euclidean distances.

1. Introduction

T h e Q C D v a c u u m is known to contain nontrivial v a c u u m configurations respon-

sible for nonzero quark [1] and gluon [2] condensates. We still do not know whether
those configurations are (i) primarily quasiclassical with small q u a n t u m fluctuations
a r o u n d them or (ii) purely q u a n t u m configurations.
There is some qualitative evidence in favor of the first point of view. According to
[3] the Q C D v a c u u m filled with quasiclassical (of the order of l / g ) fields, self-dual
and anti-self-dual, can explain qualitatively the condensates and the hierarchy of
h a d r o n masses in different channels. Those quasiclassical fields have been specified
in the instanton gas or liquid models [4-7] and all characteristics of the vacuum
have been c o m p u t e d self-consistently from the free-energy minimization [6], which
has yielded reasonable values of quark and gluon condensates, topological suscept-
ibility etc.
Unfortunately, the property of confinement has not been shown for the instant-
on vacuum, and there are analytic [8] and numerical M o n t e Carlo arguments [9]
against it.
C o n s t a n t color-magnetic fields [10] or constant self-dual fields [11] are capable of
confining quarks, but not gluons, and in addition violate most symmetries of the
vacuum. A n o t h e r problem with constant vacuum fields is that not only quarks but
also white quark-antiquark systems are confined [12] in such a vacuum. This
u n w a n t e d p r o p e r t y is absent in the model of toronic domains [13], where the Q C D

0550-3213/88/$03.500 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

(North-Holland Physics Publishing Division)
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields 513

vacuum is assumed to be filled by self-dual and anti-self-dual toronic domains

chaotically oriented.
There are, however, two main defects in all models, based on classical solutions.
Firstly, the QCD vacuum has zero net topological charges and cannot be described
as a whole by some stable (due to topology) classical solution; rather it should be
made somehow of different solutions, like a superposition of instantons and
anti-instantons, or torons and antitorons. The sum is not a solution of classical
equations of motion and is, generally speaking, not stable with respect to annihila-
tion of opposite topological charges. Secondly, the phenomenological gluon con-
densate [2] requires that topological charges be dense packed (roughly one instanton
charge per (fm)4), which leads to a strong distortion of the original solutions [14]
and the clear connection with the original superposition ansatz is lost.
These remarks also refer to magnetic monopoles, which have been suggested in
the confining mechanism as a dual Meissner effect [15]. The finite action modifica-
tions of monopole solutions called r-monopoles in [16], are actually multi-instanton
solutions sharing the deficiencies just described.
Therefore I am suggesting in this paper another approach, treating vacuum
configurations more phenomenologically. The aim is to find fundamental properties
of the vacuum configurations which ensure confinement, and more technically, to
introduce a formalism which enables one to describe long-range processes in terms
of background-field vacuum correlators. At the present stage no proof of the
proposed approach can be given, some assumptions can be however qualitatively
checked against experimental data and conventional wisdom.
The logic of the suggested approach consists of several steps.
(i) We assume that gluon fields (A~, F.~) can be decomposed into the background
(vacuum) part (A., F~) and quantum fluctuations (a., f..)

A l , = ~ + a ~. (1)
m

If A~ is quasiclassical and O(1/g) then it should be constructed of classical

solutions and defined in this way. For the reasons discussed above we refuse this
definition and then we are faced with the problem of separation, the same which has
been studied in the operator expansion technique [17]. The simplest and probably
the most reasonable principle of separation is connected to the wave lengths, i.e. we
put

(2)

where k is the euclidean 4-momentum. To make the separation condition (2)

gauge-invariant, we may attribute k to the momenta in the Fourier decomposition
of the gauge-invariant correlator which will play a fundamental role in what
514 Yu,A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields

follows:

(trF~,(x)epc(X, y)Fxo(y)e~c(y, x)) - ~,xo(x, y). (3)

Here q~c (x, y) is a contour integral along some contour C

qSc(x, y) = Pexp igLXA~(z ) dz. ; (4)

when C is the straight line from y to x we shall omit the subscript C in (4). In the
present paper the exact principle of separation in (1) is unimportant and another
equivalent way can be used instead of (2). It is important to stress that the
wave-length spectrum of .~, is bounded from below and therefore A~ does not
influence the small distance behaviour, apart from corrections, like those for
constant background field [2]. Therefore the asymptotic freedom in the vacuum
filled with the .,~ field is not spoiled.
(ii) We assume that A~, F,~ are large in the QCD scale, ( F-2~ ) >> A~cD" In this
case the renormalized coupling constant a s - ln-l(ff2/A4ocD) will be small even at
large distances, and we can define asymptotic behaviour of quark and antiquark
Green functions beyond the confinement scale.
Since a s is small one uses the usual perturbation scheme and the calculation of all
physical amplitudes should be done in several stages. First one computes Green
functions in the background field exactly (since g-A---~- O(g°)). Then one takes into
account interaction via gluon exchanges perturbatively and finally the influence of
sources on the background and their motion in the modified background. The
scheme is assumed to be infrared finite and particular examples of the background
like a constant field or the instanton gas support this assumption.
For quasiclassical solutions A~, F ~ - O(1/g) and they should be densely packed
to form a strong background. As one can see, we do not confine ourselves to
quasiclassical solutions, any type of vacuum will do if a strong condensate is
formed.
In reality [2], (~/z2j,) = 0.5 (GeV) 2 and (F~2) is indeed much larger than A4QCD
for AQC D = 0.15 GeV, but the coupling constant at large distances is not small and
may be around 0.5-1. Requiring P~ to be strong, we have in mind a theoretical
limit, where our approach can rigorously be applied. In a full-fledged theory (F,~)-2
must be found self-consistently, and will probably settle down to moderate realistic
values with a S of order of one. We believe however that qualitatively and to some
extent quantitatively our approach is useful for the discussion of long-range physics,
as will be shown below.
Assumptions (i) and (ii) have immediate qualitative consequences which can be
compared with experiment and Monte Carlo data. We have already mentioned that
a similar picture has been used in [3] with reasonable predictions for hadronic mass
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum backgroundfields 515
scales in different channels, quark-gluon mixing etc. The OZI rule violation in S, Ps
channels can be understood [18] as due to the interaction of light quarks with zero
modes of background (anti-)self-dual regions in the QCD vacuum. The intermittent
self-dual and anti-self-dual regions of background field can explain the chiral
symmetry breaking [7].
Another consequence of the strong background field is that all condensates
(qq), ((as/vr)F~,F,,), ~t = (1/V)(((as/8"n')fFff" d4x) 2) are O(g °) (up to anoma-
lous dimension of q q ) - and should be numerically of the same order and large as
compared to A~QCDwhich is indeed true (resp. (270 MeV) 3, (330 MeV) 4, ( - 200
MeV)4). More than that, one can easily persuade oneself that both gluonic con-
densate and topological susceptibility can be reproduced if the density n = IF] of
one topological charge per fm 4 and a statistical law for the difference of the
instanton and anti-instanton density (n - ~) is used.
(iii) All physical amplitudes and Green functions are obtained by averaging over
background field configurations. To maintain the 0(4) and Poincar4 invariance one
must require that the background fields form what is called a homogeneous
stochastic ensemble. In this way the Green functions fY(x, y, z .... ) will depend on
differences x - y , y - z etc. and the momentum is conserved. The average of
irreducibly gauge-noninvariant amplitudes vanishes. These properties are familiar in
background field studies.
A crucial question about the strong background field is whether it can ensure
confinement. Some progress in this direction has been described in [19-24]. It has
been shown there that the linear confinement between quark and antiquark indeed
occurs if the background field is uncorrelated for distances larger than some finite
value, called the correlation length, d [22, 21, 23].
To obtain this result an intuitive, but not rigorous method of hamiltonian
averaging, has been used in [19-21] and a very efficient method of cluster (or
cumulant) decomposition has been used first in [22] and later in [23, 24]. To make
the method applicable to the nonabelian case one should introduce so-called
path-ordered cumulants [23]. Using those the area law has been proved in [24] for
the fundamental charges, provided that the correlator (3) falls off with the correla-
tion length d. In this way confinement has been proved for infinitely massive quarks
and the question emerges whether confinement occurs for other colored objects,
includin~ ~luons.
It is the purpose of the present paper to answer this question. In doing so we
introduce the cluster expansion in the framework of the path-integral representation
for the partition function and Green functions. In sect. 2 we write the grand
partition function and integrating over background, fields obtain an effective
lagrangian for quarks. We do not obtain the most general effective lagrangian for
gluons, quarks and ghosts, and instead we disregard for simplicity gluons and ghosts
(owing to the smallness of g ( F ) ) and retain only quarks interacting with the
background fields. As an application we verify that for external quark currents
516 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields

(heavy quarks) there appears a linear confining potential as in [22, 24] but now for
any quark representation of SU(Nc). At this point we can seriously check our
model. The adjoint quarks are confined in the model, in O(g°), whereas they can be
screened by gluons in higher orders in g. If gluons (i.e. the fields in (1)) are
operative in confinement, adjoint charges should not be confined, whereas in the
suggested model they are screened only due to interaction with gluons via small
g(ff) and therefore up to large distances one should see an adjoint string tension.
The numerical experiment seems to support the adjoint quark confinement up to a
distance of 5 lattice units [25]. It is found in sect. 2 for string tension in different
representations j that

a ( j ) = )2g2d2(tr F ~ ( 0 ) ) C 2 ( j ) (N~?- 1) a, (5)

where C2(j) is a quadratic Casimir operator of SU(Nc), C2(fund ) = (N~2- 1)/2N C,

C2(adj) = Arc. For SU(2) C2(j) =j(j + 1) and this dependence seems to agree with
the numerical results [26].
Another check is the large N~ behaviour of the string tension. One expects that
the gluonic condensate is linear in N~ [27] as(trF~(0))-N,, and therefore both
fundamental and adjoint string tensions are finite and their ratio is ½ as required by
the factorization at large N~ [28].
In sect. 3 we discuss a general representation for the Green functions of a white
system composed of colored objects. The Wilson loop along the paths in the path
integral factorizes out and therefore the classical contribution to the Green function
is proportional to the exponent of the surface at large times and distances. In this
way the QCD string picture naturally emerges; however, not microscopically but
asymptotically at large I x ( q ) - x(~) I and euclidean times T.
The approach described here and in [19-24] can be applied both to abelian and
nonabelian theories. In [24] it was found that confinement due to background fields
does not occur in the abelian theory without magnetic charges. Analytic [29, 30] and
numerical [31-33] studies of the compact U(1) lattice theory give support to this
behaviour, in particular, the density of monopoles sharply rises towards fl = flcr,
where confinement takes place [33]. For nonabelian theory (or abelian theory with
monopoles) confinement arises due to the monopole current density, which can be
defined in the nonabelian case by the abelian projection procedure [34, 35]. In this
way our approach provides a quantitative realization of that procedure, and, more
generally, of the monopole condensate mechanism [15].
Finally in the last section we discuss the physical picture of the vacuum,
characterized by a finite correlation length and illustrate it with a simple example.
In conclusion we summarize the main results and outline possible prospectives. It
is stressed that the present paper does not solve the fundamental problem of
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields 517

confinement, but rather parametrizes long-range properties, including confinement,

in terms of the fundamental correlator (3). In this way our approach may be viewed
upon as a kind of "fundamental phenomenology" using as input condensates,
bilocal and multilocal averages, and is a natural extension of the QCD sum rules,
which operate only with condensates.

2. Basic equations
We are considering euclidean gauge-field configurations in euclidean space-time
and decompose the gauge field in a usual way into a background and a quantum
part as in (1), A. = A. + a., exploiting the familiar background field formalism [36].
A.(x) can be described by collective coordinates, as in the instanton vacuum, and
then a . is constrained by the background gauge condition D.(A)a. = 0 and by the
orthogonality conditions with respect to zero collective modes [6]. A similar proce-
dure can be used for another way of separation different from (2). Using the
background gauge for a.(x) and introducing ghost fields q0 and ep+, we can write
the partition function as [36]

z= f~L~a.~p+~q~/exp[-(So+Sl+S2+S3+S~)], (6)

where

So = ½f d4x tr( ff~ff~ ) , (7)

S~ = 2 f d4x tr( ff~D~( A)a~) , (8)

1 ~J4 xa,a o a,~a~-

S2=zJa b b__ }fdnxtr(a,¢,a,), (9)

s¢= fd4x~(-i'y.D.(A)-im)tP, 0o)

while S 3 includes higher order terms in a., ghost terms and a gauge-fixing term,
which we shall not use here.
The usual strategy in dealing with (6) is to assume some background field
characterized by a number of parameters, to integrate over quantum fluctuations a.,
keeping quadratic terms $2, and in this way to obtain an effective lagrangian in
terms of background field parameters. Finally minimizing the free energy F = - In Z
we get an optimization procedure for the latter and in this way we obtain an
optimized vacuum. To the full extent this procedure has been used for the instanton
vacuum [6].
518 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields

We do not want to specify background configurations and we shall use instead

another approach. Namely, we shall integrate over background field configurations,
assuming that they form a homogeneous stochastic ensemble, i.e. the functional
integration over NA, includes summation over different copies of stochastic ensem-
ble, and all averages are 0(4) and translation-invariant. We also assume no
color-symmetry breaking. As a result we would obtain an effective lagrangian for
quarks, gluons (and ghosts) and we can study its properties and look for confine-
ment.
To this end we introduce the notation 'for the average of an operator () in
background vacuum fields:

= 1
f Xe-S A b(X). (11)

To integrate the A-dependent exponents in (6) one can use the cluster expansion
[31] (sometimes also called the expansion in cumulants) valid for any functional
depending on a stochastic function, e.g. for f ( A ) linear in A~ we have

(exp(-f(A)) =exp ~
m=l
((f"(A-)))(--1)m m!
(12)

where the cumulants ( ( O ) ) are defined as follows [31]:

((f)) = (f),

( ( f 2 ) ) = ( f 2 ) __ ( f ) 2 ,

((f3)) = (f3) _ 3(f2)(f) + 2(f)3 (13)

and so on.
In our case the exponent in (6) has the A-dependent parts in S 1, S 2, S 3 and S¢.
As was discussed in the previous section, if one is interested in the behaviour of a
system of quarks in the background field A-,, one should take into account the
interaction of quarks with A-, exactly, i.e. to all orders in g, since ,4, is supposed to
be large, A--~- O(1/g). Still we consider g small, even at large distances, since g ( F )
is renormalized in the strong background field, therefore one can neglect interaction
between quarks via gluon exchanges and gluon emission in the first approximation.
Following this logic we concentrate on S+ (10) and disregard in this paper other
terms in (6). With the help of (12) we have

(14)
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields 519
where ( D r ) = 0r - ig<Ar), and the effective quark action contains the terms of the
cumulant expansion (12), starting with the second order in "4r:

- Self (t~, ~ ) = ½g2ffdxdyj~(x)j~(y)<<A~(x)A~(y)}}

1
_}__~g3fff dx dydzj;(x)2(y)j;(z )

(15)

w h e r e j ~•a( x ) = - ~Trr a~b(x). One should keep in mind, that ('4r) can be nonzero due
to the inhomogeneous term in the gauge transformation:

Ar--* U+ArU+ (i/g)V+OrU' t~'= U+t~, ~'= ~V (16)

and is needed to make separately gauge invariant expression for ~0 = tP(iyr(Dr) +

im)tp and each of the expressions in (15). If one starts with the gauge, where
(A-r) = 0, then the transformation laws (16) ensure gauge invariance of each term in
(15). Due to (13) the cumulants transform homogeneously as products of adjoint
operators, and this transformation is compensated by Jr, J, . . . .
To proceed further it is convenient to use one of the coordinate gauges, e.g. the
Fock-Schwinger gauge centered at x0

A-;~(x)= Jx[°(z p;at Idzo = folada(x-xo)pF~r(Xo+a(X-Xo)).

-° (17)

The bilocal cumulant assumes the form

( 7a --b
Ar(x)A.(y)) ) = (x __ Xo)p(y-xo)oJ{pr,o.(x,y),
ab (is)

where

pg,o~,l,X,
..)¢{'ab l y)= f01ctdctf01fldfl</-a
F;r(x0+ O~(X__XO))ffobv(xO+
(19)

The bilocal correlator of fields entering (19) can be written in a form, which is a
520 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields
slightly improved version of the form used in [24]:

<<F a,~(z)Ft~(z'))) =
~8~b<trF~(O)>[(N:__ 1 ) ( D ( O ) D+ ~ ( O ) ) l- 1

X {(6,o6.~-6,.6..)D(z- z') + ½[Oo(ho6~- h.6~o)

<tr F2,(O)>
- 6(N~2 - I ) ( D ( 0 ) + Ox(0)) gPtt'oP(Z' Z'), (20)

where h~ = z~ - z', 0r = 8/Ozw

Using the relation for SU(Nc) generators in the fundamental representation

Nc2 - ]
~-~t~t"= - - . ], (21)
2No

one can define through (20) the gauge-invariant correlator (which is equivalent to
(20) in the chosen gauge, if x 0 lies on the straight line connecting z and z')

(trF~(0))
<<tr~(z"z)F°"(z)q~(z'z')F~(z'))) = 1 2 ( D ( 0 ) + Dl(0)) g°" . . . . (22)

which becomes an identity for z ~ z'.

The form (20) explicitly separates out the term proportional to D(z) which
violates the abelian Bianchi identity 0,F,, = 0, while the second term in (20) satisfies
it. Therefore D(z) in the abelian case directly measures an admixture of magnetic
monopole currents k, as defined by 0,F,, - k, [38]. In the nonabelian case one can
use the abelian projection method [34, 35] to separate out monopole degrees of
freedom. This is in agreement with numerical studies in [35], where the abelian
projected monopole density sharply rises inside the confinement region of the phase
diagram. More detailed investigation of the connection of the abelian projection
method and of the present approach will be given elsewhere.
It was shown in [24] that linear confinement occurs when D(z) is present in (20)
and falls off exponentially (or faster than z -z) at large distances, while the second
term in (20) does not contribute to the string tension. We shall use our formalism,
eqs. (15), (18), (20) to derive the string tension for quark charges in any representa-
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuumbackgroundfields 521

tion of the SU(Nc) group. To this end we choose the current of the infinitely heavy
quark and antiquark to be

j}~ = 0, i = 1,2,3,

j,~( Xi, r) = ig[ q~6(3)( x - R) + qa6(3)(X "b R ) ] (23)

and take A-~ in the modified coordinate gauge [34]

A4(x,r)= 1daF~4(a( X - X o ) + X o , r ) ( X - X o ) , = r)dz~. (24)

It is convenient to choose x 0 to be at the center of mass, x 0 = 0. For the zero total

charge of the q~ system, Q2 = (q~, + ~ ) 2 = 0, one may recast the first term in (15)
into the form

g2qaq°ltrF~(O))
so.= 1 2 ( ~ - ~ ;71(o))
f foTa~d,'ff~dzdz'D(z-z',~-~'). (25)

We have omitted in (25) the term proportional to D 1, since it contains a full

derivative in O/Oz and O/O~- and it contributes perimeter-type terms in Self. Now
suppose D(z) falls off rapidly enough so that one can define the correlation
length d:

fd(z'-z)d(~'-~) D(z-z', ~-~')

D(o) + Dl(O)
= d 2, (26)

then from (25) one easily obtains

Seff==-TV(2R) = T o ( j ) . 2R, (27)

where the string tension o ( j ) in the representation j of the quark charge qa = Ta(j)
is expressed through the quadratic Casimir operator

(qaqa)j= T a ( j ) T a ( j ) = C2(j) . ], (28)

namely

o(j) = g2d2(trF+(0))C2(j)
12(N? - 1) (29)
522 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum backgroundfields

For the fundamental charges one has due to (21)

g2d2
o ( f ) = 2 - - ~ (tr F:a(O)) • (30)

This result coincides with the one obtained in [22,24]. Here ( t r F ~ ( 0 ) ) is in the
fundamental representation and is the standard gluonic condensate [2] (for N c = 3)

a--2(F'~(0) F'a~(o)) = 2as ( t r G ( 0 ) )

q7
=0.012 (GeV) 4. (31)

For SU(2) and any j = ½,1,... we obtain from (29)

o(j) 4j(j + 1)
(32)
3

in agreement with the result [26], used as an argument in favor of dimensional

reduction. For SU(3) the quadratic Casimir and the multiplicity are C2(m, n)=
m+~(rn1 2
-rnn+n2), d(m, n)= ½(m + 2) ( n + l ) ( m - n + 1 ) where m>~n. The
corresponding dependence of the string tension in SU(3) has been observed numeri-
cally by Campbell et al. [39]. A related evidence comes from the free energy and
from the observation of deconfinement behaviour for adjoint (and higher represen-
tation) Wilson lines at finite temperature [40].
Another test of (29) is the ratio of adjoint and fundamental string tension at any
value of No:
o (adj) 2N~}
o(f) N z_ 1 , (33)

which is 2 at large N c and coincides with the prediction [28] based on the
factorization at large iV,..
For small R, R << d, one obtains from (25) a quadratic potential, which for SU(3)
fundamental charges reads

V(r)= ~6r2g2(trF2t~(O)) 0 (34)

with p = ~ f ~ d ~ ' D ( 0 , ~')/(D(O) + DI(0)). This result agrees with [44].

3. Green functions

Green functions of quark, gluon or of any number of quarks, antiquarks and

gluons are subject to long-wave length averaging as in (7). It is important to stress at
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields 523

this point, that physically measurable Green functions and amplitudes are gauge
invariant, and one should average over vacuum fields gauge-invariant correlators
(Green functions), while an average of a gauge-noninvariant object is zero (if an
object is irreducibly gauge-noninvariant, i.e. it does not contain linearly a gauge-
invariant part [42]).
Therefore, of physical interest are Green functions describing evolution of a white
state of some number of quarks, antiquarks and gluons, defined on some space-like
surface in the 4-dimensional space, where the final state is again a gauge-invariant
(white) state defined on another space-like surface at a later time-like coordinate.
Confinement in this language follows from the fact, which will be proved in this
section, that colored constituents in a white state cannot go far from each other,
since they appear to be connected by a kind of string. For an abelian theory without
monopoles the strings do not appear and colored constituents may go astray. This
enables one to consider in this case also separate charges as one usually does in
QED.
We start with the Green function of a white system consisting of a quark at the
4-point ( y ) and an antiquark at (3) connected by the space-like contour integral
~P%(Y, Y) (4). The final state is characterized by x, ~ and ~%(x, £) respectively. The
Green function is

G(x,~; y,y)=((~(Y)q~c2(Y,x)~(x))(~b(y)~cl(y,y)~p(3))). (35)

In the spirit of our approach we first neglect the quark-antiquark interaction via
gluon exchanges and quark-pair creation taking into account only interaction with
the background field, then the quark and antiquark propagators factorize in (35):

G(x, ~; y, Y) = (~c2(+ 2 , x)S(x, Y)q~cl(Y, ~)S(2, 3)). (36)

The quark (antiquark) propagator in the external field satisfies the equation

[ (O
i x0-~ -gA~(x))+m] (37)

One can use the proper-time representation of S [43]

S(x. y)=(xJ(m- fo d, exp[-s((m2 + + go..F .)lly ), (38)

where A~ = - iO/OX,- gA~.

The integrand of (38) can be considered as a "proper-
time Green function". Omitting the magnetic interaction %F~,, which is unim-
524 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields

portant at large distances, we can write the integrand (38) as a path integral [44]

(xlexp(-sA2)ly) = S [ d ' z ] e x p ( - ~¼z:J(o) do)

XPexp ig A~(z(o))dz~,(a) , d~, do '

where the ordering is in the parameter o, 0 ~<o ~ s and [d4z] = lq N=1 d4z(n)/(2 rre)2,
z,(O) =y, z~(s)----A. The same representation is used for S(Y, ~) and we also note,
that the path-ordered exponent actually does not depend on s, therefore in (36) one
can separate out the Wilson loop factors [45]

=
ss: dsdse -'~2(s+s)</[d4z][d4z]exp (s: s:.))
- ~ ~ 2 d a - ¼ z-2d6 .W (40)

where W(x, Y, y, f~) contains a Wilson loop W(C) passing through the points
x, Y, y, y and relativistic corrections in the form of Wilson loops with insertions of
~,,A, (insertions of this kind have been considered in [46])

W(x,Y, y, y) = W(C) + tr[(-~,,A,)q,c(X, x)] + . . . . (41)

For nonrelativistic quark and antiquark eq. (40) simplifies,

G.... (x, if, y, ~ ) = (f[d3z][d3.7]exp[-½ f0T(7~ + z2)m d~-] W(C)) (42)

where now x 4 = -~4 = T , 74 = Y4 = 0.

In a similar way one can introduce the Green function for two gluons, evolving
from one white state defined on a space-like curve, to another:

G(g~)(x, x', Y, Y')= (tr( fu.(x)~Pc~(x,x')f~n(x'))tr( fo.(Y)'Pc~(Y, Y')fxv(Y')))

(43)

where 'Pc(x, x') is a path-ordered integral along the contour C as in (4) but with A_~
in the adjoint representation. Here f,~ is made of au and to lowest order in g(F)
the correlator (f(x)f(y)) can be expressed through the gluon propagator in the
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum backgroundfields 525

external field

D~,~(x, y) = ( x l ( - b 2 8 ~ + 2 gF~T
. a ) X[y), (44)

where

1)~,= 3~- iA~T a, (T")b,. = ifabc.

For D~ one can use the proper-time representation (38) and path-integral form of
(39). As a result one obtains an expression similar to (40) with m 2 = 0 and the
Wilson loop operator W(x, x', y, y') in the adjoint representation. In this way the
problem reduces to the calculation of the Wilson operator in the background field
A~, which has been done in [24] with the help of cluster expansion (12). The
contribution of bilocal correlators can be recast in the form

1 {-
(W(C)) = --trexp g2E fdo..(utfdoo.(u'l((F .(ulFo (U')l), (45)
Uc p<#
o<Tp

where d % , ( u ) is an element of the 2-dimensional surface S with boundary C. For

the correlator one can use (20) and for fast decreasing D(z) and for large S (both in
time-like and space-like directions), S >> d 2, one obtains

( W ( C ) ) = exp( - aS(C)). (46)

One should keep in mind that C and S(C) depend on the paths over which the path
integral is taken in (40), (42). For large time T and separation R between the quark
and antiquark the dominant contribution to the path integral is from classical
trajectories with fixed initial and final points, while quantum corrections contribute
to the pre-exponential factor. Therefore one obtains an effective action of the QCD
string, proportional to the surface, but only at large distances, Ax, a r >> d. When
both Ax, Ar are small ( << d), the interaction in (45) is nonlocal and not equivalent
to a simple potential interaction [47,48]. When the time T in (42) is large as
compared to the correlation length d, but the separation R is small, R << d, we are
in the situation considered in [41,49], and the correlator D ( z - z', r - r ' ) enters
effectively at 5 = U = 0, and integrated over ( r - r ' ) . This contributes a static
correction (34) to the heavy quark-antiquark potential. From this point of view the
potential picture of heavy quarks and even more so the string picture of light quarks
can be considered as a large-scale approximation of the genuine picture, which is
strongly nonlocal at small scale, and is given by the effective action in the exponent
of (45).
526 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields

To that one should also add the multilocal-correlator contributions, omitted in

(45), which have the form [50]
gn
-~. f f d o ( l ) do(2) ... fdo(n )( ( F ( 1 ) . . . F ( n )) ) , (47)

where subscripts are suppressed for simplicity. If the multilocal correlator in (47)
falls off with a correlation length d', and the average field strength is B, then the
expansion in the effective action in terms of multilocal correlators is in the
parameter Bd '2, and one can keep only the bilocal term (45) if Bd '2 << 1. We
assume that this condition is fulfilled; from the qualitative point of view higher
cumulants (correlators) also yield linear confinement and therefore hardly bring
drastic changes of our results even if the series in cumulants converges slowly, e.g. at
Bd '2 -- 1 [50].
We now turn to the one-particle Green functions, which can be written in the
gauge invariant way as in (3) or, for a quark as

{ ~(X)(~Cl(X , y ) + ( y ) ) ~ Scl(X , y). (48)

One can proceed with (3) and (48) as before (see eqs. (36)-(43)) separating from D~,
S(x, y) the phase factor, and as a result one separates out the Wilson loop factor
W(C) where the closed contour C goes along the path from x to y (to be
path-integrated) and along the fixed contour C 1 back. If C1 is a straight line, the
classical contribution to the area S(C) vanishes and one expects rather exponential
behaviour for the one-particle Green functions like e x p ( - m [ x - Y I). This reasoning
agrees with the results of [49-51]. For gauge-dependent propagators however the
behaviour may be different [52]. One should stress at this point that the correlators
(3), (48) do not enter directly the physical amplitudes, and the exponential be-
haviour noted above does not contradict confinement of colored objects, which we
have observed in the two- and more-particle Green functions (40), (42), (43).

4. Summary
As one can see from sects. 2 and 3 there are four main properties of the described
confinement mechanism.
(i) The confining force appears between colored constituents in a white system.
This happens already in the first approximation, where particles do not interact with
each other and only interact with the background field. How then the confining
force, i.e. a strong interaction, can emerge? The answer is that by requiring the total
system to be white, we impose strong correlation on the phases of charged particles.
We actually introduce what can be called a "prestring" or an "Urstring" when we
multiply a physical state ~(x)~(y') with a phase factor (3) ~c(x, y) to make it
gauge invariant. It is exactly from this element that the actual string appears after
averaging in the background field.
 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields 527

If we do not introduce such a correlating factor, as we do for the system of two

quarks in some gauge, the qq Green function factorizes and no interaction occurs
either before or after averaging.
(ii) The confining force for heavy quarks is due to the background color-electric
euclidean field, and therefore the resulting string tension does not depend on mass,
flavor and does depend on charge in a simple way (as a quadratic Casimir operator).
The color-magnetic field yields corrections inversely proportional to the mass of the
confined particle.
(iii) Confinement in the abelian case is due to magnetic monopole current density,
i.e. due to the term in the correlator which violates the abelian Bianchi identity.
(iv) To obtain linear confinement, the background field F~ should be on average
statistically independent at different points in space-time beyond some distance,
called the correlation length. Equivalently one may say, that the correlator
( F ( x ) F ( y ) > falls off at large Ix - y [ faster than some power (explicitly faster than
Ix - Y l - 2 ) .
Several clarifying remarks are in order. At first sight it is difficult to reconcile
color-electric fields with the necessity of magnetic monopoles, and to understand
the connection let us consider first a simple 2-dimensional nonrelativistic model.
A charge q and an anticharge ~ are on the x-axis in an external euclidean electric
field directed along the same axis. We are interested in the behaviour of this
one-dimensional system depending on the euclidean time ~'. The external electric
field F14(x 1, ~') is assumed to have a finite correlation length (fcl) in x 1 and ~-. The
easiest way to implement the fcl distribution is the domain model [13], where the
whole (x 1, ~') plane is divided into domains of size d × d and the sign of F14 in each
domain is plus or minus IF14[ with equal probability. In two dimensions the abelian
Bianchi identities are trivially satisfied; and to ensure the stochastic distribution of
F14 one needs only electric charge density and electric current densities on the
domain boundaries. What will be the effect of such a field on the force between
charges? If the total charge is zero, and the distance between charges I x - Yl is
small, the dipole contribution to the lagrangian

A , . ~ = diE14 = q(x - x)F14 (49)

and for large distances I x - 2[ and for a gauge-invariant (white) system one
generalizes (49) to the form

A ~ = q fXdz F14(z, "r). (5o)

The form (50) is for the gauge-invariant system qq and can be obtained from the
Wilson loop in (42) noting that f0xA.~c~a(T)d'r= fcA~dz~ = f s F 1 4 d 0 1 4 . For a gauge-
noninvariant system, e.g. for the qq system one obtains instead of (50) the sum of
two independent terms qlA4(xl)+ q2A4(x2). This illustrates point (i). Now the
528 Yu.A. Simonov / Vacuum background fields

average of (50) over field distributions is zero and one must consider the quadratic
contribution to the action, which due to the cluster expansion reads

ASerf=q2ford1"ford'c'fXdzffdz'((F14(z,'r)Ft4(z','r')>). (51)

Assuming a finite correlation length in both z and -r directions one immediately

obtains the linear potential also in this two-dimensional case, due to the electric
field as stated in point (ii)

ASeff = q2d2Tlx _ ~[ < IEl412). (52)

Eqs. (51) and (52) illustrate point (iv). Indeed ASeff is an averaged square of the
sum (50) of statistically independent deviations and it is proportional to the number
of steps, ] x -Y[/d. Therefore the linear confinement is linear because the mecha-
nism is that of the random walk problem, and distance measures the total number
of steps.
Finally, why magnetic monopoles? Here, in the 2-dimensional problem they do
not appear, because we can arrange a statistically independent, and homogeneous in
the plane distribution of the field, El4 without monopoles. Now let us add two more
dimensions (y, z). If F14 does not depend on y, z, the Bianchi identities still are
satisfied, but the field distribution in the 4-space is not 0(4) symmetric, and the
general form of the correlator is more complicated than (20).
And now if we insist on having a completely symmetric distribution of fields, then
F14 should depend on all four coordinates (and other components F,~ appear). At
this point the Bianchi identities are violated and magnetic monopole currents
appear at the boundaries of the domains to match a change of F14 as a function of y
and z.
This simple example enables one to understand the crucial role of magnetic
monopole currents in creating a homogeneous stochastic distribution.
That "disorder through monopoles" is part of a general phenomenon, common to
both statistical physics and field theory, where disorder transitions are caused by
condensation of topological objects [53].

5. Conclusion

We have described in the present paper an approach which is intended to take

into account confinement phenomenologically, using bilocal correlators as a funda-
mental input. It appears that the magnetic monopole current density solely ensures
nonzero string tension. Our results are supported by numerical studies of the density
of abelian projected magnetic monopoles in [35]. It is more a fundamental task (not
discussed here) to prove that magnetic monopoles are present in the QCD vacuum
 Yu.A. Simonoo / Vacuum backgroundfields 529

and bilocal correlators have the form assumed by us. The formalism proposed
should have a connection to the dual long-distance lagrangian [54] since both
fundamentally seem to be based on the same physics. On a more phenomenological
level there are many directions where the approach can be developed further: heavy
and light quarkonia, hadron structure etc. These topics will be discussed elsewhere.

The author is grateful to H.G. Dosch for stimulating communications, M.B.

Voloshin for useful suggestion, K.G. Boreskov, B.L. Ioffe, A.B. Kaidalov, I.Yu.
Kobzarev, M.A. Shifman, A.I. Vainshtein, and V.I. Zakharov for useful remarks;
discussions with G. 't Hooft, N. van Kampen and members of the theoretical
seminar at the Utrecht University are gratefully appreciated.

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