The Integrable Chromodynamic Flux Tube

规范理论是我们理解自然界四种已知力中的三种力的核心：电磁力、弱力和强力。此外，我们把量子理论和引力统一起来的最佳候选者--弦理论--本身最好是通过规范理论用所谓的规范/弦对偶来定义。（这些是显著的对应关系，说明了某些规范理论与具有一个额外空间维的弯曲时空中的弦理论之间的精确等价性。）尽管规范理论在物理学中扮演着绝对的核心角色，但它们还远远没有被我们目前的理论工具所驯服。一个数学上健全的物理现象，如禁闭，手征对称破缺和质量间隙的存在是根本没有可用的分析描述和精确的场论机制，规范/弦对偶来了仍然是难以捉摸的。为了解决这些迷人的问题，人们需要在强耦合区域控制规范理论，在那里标准微扰技术不足。迫切需要新的概念方法和工具。

Gauge theories lie at the heart of our understanding of three of the four known forces in nature: the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces. Moreover, our best candidate for uniting quantum theory and gravity – string theory – is itself best defined through a gauge theory by means of the so-called gauge/string dualities. (These are remarkable correspondences stating the precise equivalence between certain gauge theories and string theories in curved space-times with one extra spatial dimension.) Despite their absolutely central role in physics, gauge theories are very far from being tamed with our current theoretical tools. A mathematically sound analytic description of physical phenomena such as confinement, chiral symmetric breaking and the existence of a mass gap is simply not available and the precise field theory mechanism by which gauge/string dualities come about is still elusive. To address these fascinating questions, one needs control over gauge theories in the strongly coupled regime, where standard perturbative techniques fall short. New conceptual approaches and tools are urgently needed.