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Study of the Emergence of a Gluon Mass Scale from Center Vortices Using a Wave-Functional Formalism

David R. Junior1,2, Gastão Krein1, Luis E. Oxman3, and Bruno R. Soares1

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 111902 – Published 20 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fs1k-rjbg

Abstract

Lattice simulations and theoretical analyses consistently identify center vortices and monopoles as key nonperturbative configurations in Yang-Mills theory. In the continuum, the effective representation of mixed oriented and nonoriented center vortices showed that these degrees of freedom generate a confining flux tube with N-ality. Independently, studies of correlation functions reveal an infrared behavior characterized by massivelike scales. In this Letter, field correlators are computed for the first time in a theoretical framework based on center vortices. Using an Abelian-projected vacuum wave functional peaked on the mixed ensemble, we show the emergence of a massivelike gauge-invariant field strength correlator. For this behavior, the nonoriented component in the center-vortex condensate turns out to be essential, as is also the case for producing the correct properties of confining flux tubes.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 111902– Published 20 March, 2026
  • Received 21 October 2025
  • Revised 18 December 2025
  • Accepted 19 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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