TOWARDS A TOPOLOGICAL MECHANISM OF QUARK CONFINEMENT

We report on new analyses of the topological and chiral vacuum structu re of four-dimensional QCD on the lattice. Correlation functions as we ll as visualization of monopole currents in the maximally Abelian gaug e emphasize their topological origin and gauge invariant characterizat ion. The (anti)selfdual character of strong vacuum fluctuations is rev ealed by smoothing. In full QCD, (anti)instanton positions are also ce nters of the local chiral condensate and quark charge density. Most re sults turn out generically independent of the action and the cooling/s moothing method.