String tensions in deformed Yang-Mills theory

We study k-strings in deformed Yang-Mills (dYM) with SU(N) gauge group in the semiclassically calculable regime on ℝ3×S1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ {\mathbb{R}}^3\times {\mathbb{S}}^1 $$\end{document}. Their tensions Tk are computed in two ways: numerically, for 2 ≤ N ≤ 10, and via an analytic approach using a re-summed perturbative expansion. The latter serves both as a consistency check on the numerical results and as a tool to analytically study the large-N limit. We find that dYM k-string ratios Tk/T1 do not obey the well-known sine- or Casimir-scaling laws. Instead, we show that the ratios Tk/T1 are bound above by a square root of Casimir scaling, previously found to hold for stringlike solutions of the MIT Bag Model. The reason behind this similarity is that dYM dynamically realizes, in a theoretically controlled setting, the main model assumptions of the Bag Model. We also compare confining strings in dYM and in other four-dimensional theories with abelian confinement, notably Seiberg-Witten theory, and show that the unbroken ℤN\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ {\mathbb{Z}}_N $$\end{document} center symmetry in dYM leads to different properties of k-strings in the two theories; for example, a “baryon vertex” exists in dYM but not in softly-broken Seiberg-Witten theory. Our results also indicate that, at large values of N, k-strings in dYM do not become free.