FINITE-TEMPERATURE QUARK CONFINEMENT VIA CHROMOMAGNETIC FIELDS

A natural mechanism for finite temperature quark confinement arises vi a the coupling of the adjoint Polyakov loop to the chromomagnetic fiel d. Lattice simulations and analytical results both support this hypoth esis. Finite temperature SU(3) lattice simulations show that a large e xternal coupling to the chromomagnetic field restores confinement at t emperatures above the normal deconfining temperature. A one-loop calcu lation of the effective potential for SU(2) gluons in a background fie ld shows that a constant chromomagnetic field can drive the Polyakov l oop to confining behavior, and the Polyakov loop can in turn remove th e well-known tachyonic mode associated with gluons in an external chro momagnetic field. For abelian background fields, tachyonic modes are n ecessary for confinement at one loop.