title: Computation of the vortex free energy in SU(2) gauge theory
abstract: We present the first measurement of the vortex free-energy order parameter at weak coupling for SU(2) in simulations employing multihistogram methods. The result shows that the excitation probability for a sufficiently thick vortex in the vacuum tends to unity. This is rigorously known to provide a necessary and sufficient condition for maintaining confinement at weak coupling in SU(N) gauge theories.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Instituut-Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, P. O. Box 9506, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Kovacs
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Tomboulis