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Title: Do center vortices alone give the full SU(3) string tension
Plain: For two-color gluons, keeping only vortex-like defects of the field reproduces nearly all of the confining force. For three colors, as in real QCD, it is unclear whether they account for all of it.
Precise: In 4D pure $\mathrm{SU}(3)$ lattice gauge theory, center projection after maximal center gauge yields a $Z_{3}$ link field whose Wilson loops define a vortex-only string tension $\sigma_{vortex}$. Determine whether $\sigma_{vortex}/\sigma \to 1$ in the continuum limit (lattice spacing $a \to 0$), and whether this ratio is independent of the gauge-fixing procedure and Gribov copies.
Settled by: A continuum-extrapolated lattice measurement of $\sigma_{\mathrm{vortex}}/\sigma$ with controlled dependence on gauge fixing and smoothing.
Kind: well-posed
Answer type: yes-no
References: (empty)
Literature status: contested
Status note: SU(2) shows near-complete vortex dominance; in pure SU(3) projected vortices give about two thirds of the string tension, while with dynamical quarks they reproduce the full value (Biddle, Kamleh, Leinweber 2022); gauge-fixing and smoothing effects remain disputed.
Posed since: (empty)