Field, current, and charge distribution in a pure gauge SU(3) flux tube

¹ Department of Physics, University of Washington, WA 98105 Seattle, USA
² Institut für Theoretische Physik, Goethe Universität, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
³ INFN - Sezione di Bari, I-70126 Bari, Italy
⁴ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria, I-87036 Arcavacata di Rende, Cosenza, Italy
⁵ INFN - Gruppo collegato di Cosenza, I-87036 Arcavacata di Rende, Cosenza, Italy

^* e-mail: mbaker4@uw.edu
^** e-mail: chelnokov@itp.uni-frankfurt.de
^*** e-mail: leonardo.cosmai@ba.infn.it
^**** e-mail: cuteri@itp.uni-frankfurt.de
^† e-mail: alessandro.papa@fis.unical.it

Published online: 22 December 2022

Abstract

The quark confinement in QCD is achieved by concentration of the chromoelectric field between the quark-antiquark pair into a flux tube, which gives rise to a linear quark-antiquark potential. We study the structure of the flux tube created by a static quark-antiquark pair in the pure gauge SU(3) theory, using lattice Monte-Carlo simulations. We calculate the spatial distribution of all three components of the chromoelectric field and perform the “zero curl subtraction” procedure to obtain the nonperturbative part of the longitudinal component of the field, which we identify as the part responsible for the formation of the flux tube. Taking the spatial derivatives of the obtained field allows us to extract the electric charge and magnetic current densities in the flux tube. The behavior of these observables under smearing and with respect to continuum scaling is investigated. Finally, we briefly discuss the role of magnetic currents in the formation of the string tension.