Domain structures and quark potentials in SU($3$) gauge theory

Abstract

We analyze the static potentials for various representations in SU($3$) Yang-Mills theory within the framework of the domain model of center vortices. The influence of vortex interactions is investigated on the static potentials. We show that, by ad-hoc choosing the probability weights of the different vortex configurations contributing to the static potential, a phenomenologically satisfactory result for the different representations can be achieved. In particular including vacuum domains, a way to effectively parametrize vortex interactions, is crucial in obtaining an (almost) everywhere convex potential when interpolating between the short distances and the asymptotic regimes.