The Gauge String Solution of the D>=3 Yang-Mills Loop Equations

Abstract

I adapt the Gauge String, representing the strong coupling (SC) expansion in the continuous D>=3 Yang-Mills theory (YM_{D}) with a sufficiently large bare coupling constant \lambda>\lambda_{cr} and a fixed ultraviolet cut off \Lambda, to the analysis of the regularized Wilson's loop-averages. When generalized to describe the fat (rather than infinitely thin) flux-tubes, the pattern of thus modified U(N) Gauge String is proved to be consistent with the chain of the judiciously regularized U(N) Loop equations. In particular, we reveal the dimensional reduction YM_{D}=>YM_{2}, taking place in the extreme SC limit \lambda=>\infty, and compare it with the implications of the AdS/CFT correspondence conjecture. On the other hand, for the loop-averages associated to the sufficiently large minimal areas, the proposed stringy pattern is supposed to be in the one infrared universality class (provided the loops are without zig-zag backtrackings) with the novel implementation of the noncritical D-dimensional Nambu-Goto string. The peculiarity is due to the nonstandard \Lambda^{2}-scaling, \Lambda^{2}=O(\sigma_{ph}), of the physical string tension \sigma_{ph}. Being well-motivated from the viewpoint of the standard YM_{4} theory with \lambda=>0, this scaling is argued to entail that the considered modification of the Nambu-Goto system is in the stringy (rather than in the branched polymer) regime. In sum, the confinement in the continuous D>=3 U(N) (and, similarly, SU(N)) gauge theory is justified, for the first time, at least when both N and \lambda are sufficiently large. As a by-product, when continued to N=1, the Gauge String is shown to describe the continuous U(1) gauge theory with the monopoles.