't Hooft loops and perturbation theory
Abstract
We show that high-temperature perturbation theory describes extremely well the area law of SU(N) spatial 't Hooft loops, or equivalently the tension of the interface between different ZN vacua in the deconfined phase. For SU(2), the disagreement between Monte Carlo data and lattice perturbation theory for sigma(T)/T2 is less than 2%, down to temperatures O(10) Tc. For SU(N), N>3, the ratios of interface tensions, (sigmak/sigma1)(T), agree with perturbation theory, which predicts tiny deviations from the ratio of Casimirs, down to nearly Tc. In contrast, individual tensions differ markedly from the perturbative expression. In all cases, the required precision Monte Carlo measurements are made possible by a simple but powerful modification of the 'snake' algorithm.
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