Confinement in dually transformed U(1) lattice gauge theory

The aim of this work is a detailed investigation of the confinement mechanism in U(1) lattice gauge theory. In the first chapters we give a review on the definition of compact Abelian gauge theory on space-time lattices, the numerical calculation of physical observables for exploring confinement, and the interpretation of the results in terms of the dual superconductor picture, which is introduced at two levels of description. We work out that the electric field strength and the magnetic currents around a charge pair can be described very well by a classical effective model of Maxwell and London equations, if fluctuations of the occurring fluxoid string are considered. In order to obtain a deeper understanding of confinement in U(1), we extend the duality transformation of the path integral to the correlation functions which are used to calculate expectation values of fields and currents. This not only helps to interpret U(1) lattice gauge theory as a limit of the dual Higgs model, but also opens the possibility for efficient calculations of expectation values in the presence of static charges by simulating the dual model. Using this technique we are able to consider large flux tube lengths, low temperatures, and multiply charged systems without loss of numerical precision. The dual simulation is applied to flux tubes between static charges, to periodically closed flux tubes (torelons), and to doubly charged systems. We find that the behavior of flux tubes for large charge distances cannot be explained by the picture of a classical dual type-II superconductor; the observed roughening of the flux tube agrees very well with the prediction from the effective string description. We also analyze the different contributions to the total energy of the electromagnetic field. For torelons we calculate both the free energy and the total field energy, split the free energy into a string tension and a string fluctuation part, and apply lattice sum rules modified for finite temperature simulations. Finally we perform an investigation of double flux tubes; the main results axe that the string tension in both three and four dimensions scales proportionally to the charge and that in four-dimensional U(l) there is an attractive interaction between flux tubes for β approaching the phase transition. (author)