Bag Formation from Gauge Condensate

Abstract

As it is well known, one can lower the energy of the trivial perturbation QCD vacuum by introducing a non-vanishing chromomagnetic field strength. This happens because radiative corrections produce an effective action of the form $f(F_{\mu\nu}^aF^{\mu\nu a})$ with $f'(y_0)=0$ for some $y_0\neq 0$. However, a vacuum with a non zero field strength is not consistent with Poincare Invariance (PI). Generalizing this type of effective action by introducing, in the simplest way, a four index field strength $\partial_{[\mu}A_{\nu\alpha\beta]}$, which can have an expectation value without violating PI, we are lead to an effective action that can describe both a confinement phase and a perturbative phase of the theory. In the unconfined phase, the 4-index field strength does not introduce new degrees of freedom, while in the confined phase both 4-index field strength and ordinary gauge fields are not true degrees of freedom. The matching of these phases through membranes that couple minimally to the 3-index potentials from which the 4-index field strength derive, leads automatically to the MIT bag boundary conditions for the gauge fields living inside the bubble containing the perturbative phase.