Dynamical Quarks in the Ensemble of Center Vortices with Monopole Defects: Color Confinement Beyond External Probes

Abstract

We consider the interaction of dynamical quarks with the ensemble of oriented and nonoriented center vortices proposed to describe flux-tube formation between quark probes in pure Yang-Mills theory. The quark sector is described in terms of bosonized color currents. Within this fluid-like framework, the infrared vortex--monopole condensate restricts finite-energy configurations to be color neutral. Furthermore, neutral distributions of constituent color densities embedded in the condensate generate frustrated regions, providing a mechanism for their localization into finite-size configurations. The resulting picture is consistent with lattice evidence indicating that center vortices play a central role in shaping the hadron spectrum.