Clear correlation between monopoles and the chiral condensate in SU(3) QCD

We study spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking in SU(3) QCD in terms of the dual superconductor picture for quark confinement in the maximally Abelian (MA) gauge, using lattice QCD Monte Carlo simulations with four different lattices of 16(4), 24(4), 24(3) x 6 at beta = 6.0 (i.e., the spacing a similar or equal to 0.1 fm), and 32(4) at beta = 6.2 (i.e., a similar or equal to 0.075 fm), at the quenched level. First, in the confinement phase, we find Abelian dominance and monopole dominance in the MA gauge for the chiral condensate in the chiral limit, using the two different methods of (i) the Banks-Casher relation with the Dirac eigenvalue density and (ii) finite quark-mass calculations with the quark propagator and its chiral extrapolation. In the high-temperature deconfined phase, the chiral restoration is observed also for the Abelian and the monopole sectors. Second, we investigate local correlation between the chiral condensate and monopoles, which topologically appear in the MA gauge. We find that the chiral condensate locally takes a quite large value near monopoles. As an interesting possibility, the strong magnetic field around monopoles is responsible to chiral symmetry breaking in QCD, similarly to the magnetic catalysis.

Automated summary

The study reveals Abelian dominance and monopole dominance in the maximally Abelian gauge for the chiral condensate in the confinement phase, while chiral restoration is observed for the Abelian and monopole sectors in the high-temperature deconfined phase. The research also investigates the local correlation between the chiral condensate and monopoles, suggesting a possibility that the strong magnetic field around monopoles is responsible for chiral symmetry breaking in QCD, similar to magnetic catalysis.