The strong force between quarks has an intriguing nature. In most of the universe, it is strongly confining and quarks are bound by gluons into protons and other hadrons. This “confinement” property underpins the stability of matter. However, just after the Big Bang, the strong interaction was in a high temperature, deconfined, regime. Understanding the cause of this confinement-deconfinement transition is one of the central, unsolved problems in particle physics. A compelling description of confinement can be constructed using “centre vortices”, topological structures in the gluon fields analogous to the twist in a Möbius strip. Using this approach we’ve revealed three “phases” of the strong force as the temperature increases with deconfinement only occurring in the hottest phase. We present novel ideas using topology to build a deeper understanding of confinement.

This work is a collaboration with Vanessa Robins, colleagues in Adelaide University, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Queensland and Swansea University