Center vortices of Yang-Mills theory at finite temperatures

Recent lattice calculations performed at zero temperature and in the maximal center gauge indicate that quark confinement can be understood in this gauge as due to fluctuations in the number of magnetic vortices piercing a given Wilson loop. This development has led to a revival of the vortex condensation theory of confinement. For a SU(2) gauge group, we show that also at finite temperatures, center vortices are the relevant collective infrared degrees of freedom determining the long-range static quark potential; in particular, their dynamics reflect the transition to the deconfining phase. Supported in part by DFG under contract Re 856/1–3. 1 Introduction. One of the most intriguing prospects of strong interaction physics is the expected existence of a deconfined phase above a certain transition temperature. While strongly interacting matter, i.e. matter carrying a color quantum number, has to date only been observed in the form of color-singlet bound states called hadrons, the deconfined phase is characterized by the possibility of colored