An Introduction to the Confinement Problem

This book addresses the confinement problem, which quite generally deals with the behavior of non-abelian
gauge theories, and the force which is mediated by gauge fields, at large distances.
The word “confinement” in the context of hadronic physics originally
referred to the fact that quarks and gluons appear to be trapped inside mesons and
baryons, from which they cannot escape. There are other, and possibly deeper meanings
that can be attached to the term, and these will be explored in this book. Although
the confinement problem is far from solved, much is now known about the
general features of the confining force, and there are a number of very well motivated theories of confinement which are under active
investigation. This volume gives a both pedagogical and concise introduction and overview of the main ideas in this
field, their attractive features, and, as appropriate, their shortcomings.