Structure of the vacuum in the color dielectric model: confinement and chiral symmetry

Two of the most important properties of Quantum Chromodynamic (QCD), spontaneous symmetry breaking of the vacuum and quark confinement at low energy, are first presented. Some important effective models for hadronic physics are then described. Putting QCD on the lattice and using the block-spin method, the color-dielectric model effective Lagrangian is obtained. The structure of the vacuum and the behaviour of uniform quark matter at high intensity are investigated in this model. Its original formulation is extended to handle chiral symmetry (by use of sigma model) and to include negative energy orbitals. At high baryonic density, the model describes the two phase transitions which are expected in QCD: deconfinement of quarks and chiral symmetry restoration. Finally, a heavy meson composed by a charmed quark anti-quark pair, is constructed, and the valence quarks confinement and the vacuum structure around them are studied