QCD vacuum and confinement

Abstract

This course consists of two lectures. In the first lecture I discuss why a non perturbative formulation of QCD is needed, and I show that lattice formulation copes with this need, even if it mainly produces numerical results. In the second lecture I discuss how lattice can help to understand the deconfinement transition.Such understanding is also important to predict parameters that can help in the interpretation of heavy ions high energy experiments.

Comments: Lectures presented at the PASI (Pan American Study Institute), Campos do Jordao, Brasil, January 2002. To appear in the Proceedings