The mechanism of non-Abelian color confinement is studied in SU(2) lattice gauge theory in terms of the Abelian fields and monopoles extracted from non-Abelian link variables without adopting gauge fixing. First, the static quark-antiquark potential and force are computed with the Abelian and monopole Polyakov loop correlators, and the resulting string tensions are found to be identical to the non-Abelian string tension. These potentials also show the scaling behavior with respect to the change of lattice spacing. Second, the profile of the color-electric field between a quark and an antiquark is investigated with the Abelian and monopole Wilson loops. The color-electric field is squeezed into a flux tube due to monopole supercurrent with the same Abelian color direction. The parameters corresponding to the penetration and coherence lengths show the scaling behavior, and the ratio of these lengths, i.e., the Ginzburg-Landau parameter, indicates that the vacuum type is near the border of the type 1 and type 2 (dual) superconductors. These results are summarized in which the Abelian fundamental charge defined in an arbitrary color direction is confined inside a hadronic state by the dual Meissner effect. As the colorneutral state in any Abelian color direction corresponds to the physical color-singlet state, this effect explains non-Abelian color confinement and supports the existence of a gauge-invariant mechanism of color confinement due to the dual Meissner effect caused by Abelian monopoles.

The dual Meissner effect is observed without monopoles in quenched SU(2) QCD with Landau gauge fixing. Magnetic displacement currents that are time-dependent Abelian magnetic fields act as solenoidal currents squeezing Abelian electric fields. Monopoles are not always necessary for the dual Meissner effect. A mean-field calculation suggests that the dual Meissner effect through the mass generation of the Abelian electric field is related to a gluon condensate A(a)(mu)A(a)(mu) not equal 0 of mass dimension 2.

Abelian mechanism of non-Abelian color confinement is observed in a gauge-independent way by high precision lattice Monte Carlo simulations in gluodynamics. An Abelian gauge field is extracted with no gauge-fixing. A static quark-antiquark potential derived from Abelian Polyakov loop correlators gives us the same string tension as the non-Abelian one. The Hodge decomposition of the Abelian Polyakov loop correlator to the regular photon and the singular monopole parts also reveals that only the monopole part is responsible for the string tension. The investigation of the flux-tube profile then shows that Abelian electric fields defined in an arbitrary color direction are squeezed by monopole supercurrents with the same color direction, and the quantitative features of flux squeezing are consistent with those observed previously after Abelian projections with gauge fixing. Gauge independence of Abelian and monopole dominance strongly supports that the mechanism of non-Abelian color confinement is due to the Abelian dual Meissner effect.Comment: 4 pages, 6 Postscript figure

The vacuum type of SU(2) gluodynamics is studied using Monte Carlo simulations in maximally Abelian (MA) gauge and in Landau (LA) gauge, where the dual Meissner effect is observed to work. The dual Meissner effect is characterized by the coherence and the penetration lengths. Correlations between Wilson loops and electric fields are evaluated in order to measure the penetration length in both gauges. The coherence length is shown to be fixed in the MA gauge from measurements of the monopole density around the static quark-antiquark pair. It is also shown numerically that a dimension 2 gluon operator A A ÿ s and the monopole density has a strong correlation as suggested theoretically. Such a correlation is observed also between the monopole density and A 2 s A A ÿ s A 3 A 3 s condensate if the remaining U(1) gauge degree of freedom is fixed to U(1) Landau gauge (U1LA). The coherence length is determined numerically also from correlations between Wilson loops and A A ÿ s and A 2 s in MA U1LA gauge. Assuming that the same physics works in the LA gauge, we determine the coherence length from correlations between Wilson loops and A 2 s . Penetration lengths and coherence lengths in the two gauges are almost the same. The vacuum type of the confinement phase in both gauges is near to the border between the type 1 and the type 2 dual superconductors.