INSTANTONS AND MONOPOLES IN THE MAXIMALLY ABELIAN GAUGE

We study the Abelian projection of SU(2) instantons in the maximally A belian gauge. We find that in this gauge an isolated instanton produce s a closed monopole loop within its core and the size of this loop inc reases with the core size. We show that this result is robust against the introduction of small quantum fluctuations. We investigate the eff ects of neighbouring (anti-)instantons upon each other and show how ov erlapping (anti-)instantons can generate larger monopole loops. We fin d, however, that in fields that are typical of the fully quantised vac uum only some of the large monopole loops that are important for confi nement have a topological origin. We comment on what this may imply fo r the role of instantons in confinement and chiral symmetry breaking.