Monopole Loop Distribution and Confinement in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

Abstract

The abelian-projected monopole loop distribution is extracted from maximal abelian gauge simulations. The number of loops of a given length falls as a power of the length nearly independent of lattice size. This power increases with $\beta =4/g^2$, reaching five around $\beta =2.85$, beyond which loops any finite fraction of the lattice size vanish in the infinite lattice limit, suggesting the continuum theory lacks confinement.

Comments: 6 pages Latex, 4 eps figures. Minor editing. Final version, to appear in Physics Letters B