Mechanism of quark confinement in Quantum Chromodynamics

Characterize the mechanism of confinement in Quantum Chromodynamics that binds quarks into hadrons at large distance scales where the strong coupling constant increases, and provide a detailed, predictive description of this process.

Background

The paper recounts the development from the static quark model to Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), emphasizing experimental evidence from deep inelastic scattering at SLAC and the theoretical framework that followed. QCD exhibits asymptotic freedom at short distances, enabling precise calculations, but at larger distances the coupling becomes strong and quarks are confined into hadrons.

The author explicitly notes that while confinement is observed, the detailed mechanism behind it remains unresolved. This is a central open problem in strong-interaction physics and is highlighted here as an outstanding issue within the otherwise well-established QCD description of hadrons.