Topological Aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics
Abstract
Description
Absolute confinement of its color charges is a natural property of gauge theories such as quantum chromodynamics. On the one hand, it can be attributed to the existence of color-magnetic monopoles, a topological feature of the theory, but one can also maintain that all non-Abelian gauge theories confine. It is illustrated how ``confinement'' works in the SU(2) sector of the Standard Model, and why for example the electron and its neutrino can be viewed as SU(2)-hadronic bound states rather than a gauge doublet.
The mechanism called `Abelian projection' then puts the Abelian sector of any gauge theory on a separate footing.
12 pages plain TeX, 1 figure PostScript. Erice lecture notes Aug/Sept 1998. Small cosmetic - yet important - changes were made in the original manuscript
12 pages plain TeX, 1 figure PostScript. Erice lecture notes Aug/Sept 1998. Small cosmetic - yet important - changes were made in the original manuscript