Center vortex model for Sp(2) Yang-Mills theory

Abstract

The question whether the center vortex picture of the strongly interacting vacuum can encompass the infrared dynamics of both SU(2) as well as Sp(2) Yang-Mills theory is addressed. These two theories contain the same center vortex degrees of freedom, and yet exhibit deconfinement phase transitions of different order. This is argued to be caused by the effective action governing the vortices being different in the two cases. To buttress this argument, a random vortex world-surface model is constructed which reproduces available lattice data characterizing Sp(2) Yang-Mills confinement properties. A new effective action term which can be interpreted in terms of a vortex stickiness serves to realize a first-order deconfinement phase transition, as found in Sp(2) Yang-Mills theory. Predictions are given for the behavior of the spatial string tension at finite temperatures.