Heavy quark potential in the instanton liquid model

Abstract

We study the heavy quark potential in the instanton liquid model by carefully measuring Wilson loops out to a distance of order 3$fm$. A random instanton ensemble with a fixed radius $\rho$ = 1/3$fm$ generates a potential $V(R)$ growing very slowly at large $R$. In contrast, a more realistic size distribution growing as $\rho^6$ at small $\rho$ and decaying as $\rho^{-5}$ at large $\rho$, leads to a potential which grows linearly with $R$. The string tension, however, is only about 1/10 of the phenomenological value.