Monopole Loop Distribution and Confinement in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

Abstract

The abelian-projected monopole loop distribution is extracted from maximal abelian gauge simulations. The number of loops of a given length falls as a power of the length nearly independent of lattice size. This power increases with $β=4/g^2$, reaching five around $β=2.85$, beyond which loops any finite fraction of the lattice size vanish in the infinite lattice limit, suggesting the continuum theory lacks confinement.