Cosmic F- and D-strings from pure Yang-Mills theory

Understand

We discuss the formation of cosmic strings or macroscopic color flux tubes after the deconfinement/confinement phase transition in the pure Yang-Mills theory.

• Based on holographic dual descriptions, these cosmic strings can be interpreted as fundamental (F-) strings or wrapped D-branes (which we call as D-strings) in the gravity side, depending on the structure of the gauge group.
• In fact, the reconnection probabilities of the F- and D-strings are suppressed by factors of $1/N^2$ and $e^{-c N}$, where $c = \mathcal{O}(1)$, in a large-$N$ limit, respectively.
• Supported by the picture of electric-magnetic duality, we discuss that color flux tubes form after the deconfinement/confinement phase transition, just like the formation of local cosmic strings after spontaneous symmetry breaking in the weak-U(1) gauge theory.