Some Insights into the Method of Center Projection

Abstract

We present several new results which pertain to the successes of center projection in maximal center gauge (MCG). In particular, we show why any center vortex, inserted "by hand" into a thermalized lattice configuration, will be among the set of vortices found by the center projection procedure. We show that this "vortex-finding property" is lost when gauge-field configurations are fixed to Landau gauge prior to the maximal center gauge fixing; this fact accounts for the loss of center dominance in the corresponding projected configurations. Variants of maximal center (adjoint Landau) gauge are proposed which correctly identify relevant center vortices.