Color Memory: A Yang-Mills Analog of Gravitational Wave Memory

A transient color flux across null infinity in classical Yang-Mills theory is considered. It is shown that a pair of test "quarks" initially in a color singlet generically acquire net color as a result of the flux. A nonlinear formula is derived for the relative color rotation of the quarks. For a weak color flux, the formula linearizes to the Fourier transform of the soft gluon theorem. This color memory effect is the Yang-Mills analog of the gravitational memory effect.