What are the confining field configurations of strong-coupling lattice gauge theory?

Starting from the strong-coupling SU(2) Wilson action in D = 3 dimensions, we derive an effective, semi-local action on a lattice of spacing L times t he spacing of the original lattice. It is shown that beyond the adjoint col or-screening distance, i.e. for L greater than or equal to 5, thin center v ortices are stable saddlepoints of the corresponding effective action. Sinc e the entropy of these stable objects exceeds their action, center vortices percolate throughout the lattice, and confine color charge in half-integer representations of the SU(2) gauge group. This result contradicts the folk lore that confinement in strong-coupling lattice gauge theory, for D > 2 di mensions, is simply due to plaquette disorder, as is the case in D = 2 dime nsions. It also demonstrates explicitly how the emergence and stability of center vortices are related to the existence of color screening by gluon fi elds.