Center vortex structure in the presence of dynamical fermions

Abstract

An analysis of the geometry and structure of center vortices in the presence of dynamical fermions is performed. A variety of metrics are used to measure the matrix structure of the vortex-modified gauge fields. Visualizations of center vortices are presented and percolating clusters are identified. The size of secondary vortex clusters is analyzed, with substantial differences observed between the pure Yang-Mills and dynamical fermion case. Vortex fields are represented as directed graphs, with branching points acting as the vertices. This representation leads to a novel picture of vortex branching as a binomial process. These results elucidate the change in the center vortex vacuum induced by the introduction of dynamical fermions.