Magnetic flux loop in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

Understand

We consider the expectation value of a magnetic flux loop in the immediate forward light cone of collisions of heavy nuclei at high energies.

• Such collisions are characterized by a non-linear scale Q_s where color fields become strong.
• We find that loops of area greater than ~2/Q_s^2 exhibit area law behavior, which determines the scale of elementary flux excitations ("vortices").
• We also estimate the magnetic string tension, sigma_M = 0.12 Q_s^2.