Tunneling in two-dimensional QCD

The spectral density for two-dimensional continuum QCD has a non-analytic behavior for a critical area. Apparently this is not reflected in the Wilson loops. However, we show that the existence of a critical area is encoded in the winding Wilson loops: Although there is no non-analyticity or phase transition in these Wilson loops, the dynamics of these loops consists of two smoothly connected domains separated by the critical area, one domain with a confining behavior for large winding Wilson loops, and one (below the critical size) where the string tension disappears. We show that this can be interpreted in terms of a simple tunneling process between an ordered and a disordered state. In view of recent results by Narayanan and Neuberger this tunneling may also be relevant for four-dimensional QCD. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.