Connection between center vortices and instantons through gauge-field smoothing

A recent lattice study of the Landau-gauge overlap quark propagator has shown a connection between center vortices and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in SU(3) gauge theory. We further investigate this relationship through an exploration of the connection to the instanton degrees of freedom. After identifying center vortices on the lattice in maximal center gauge, we smooth configurations using multiple algorithms. We are able to create an instanton liquid-like background on configurations consisting solely of center vortices, analogous to that found on Monte-Carlo generated configurations after similar smoothing. Through calculations of the static quark potential and Landau-gauge overlap propagator, we show that this background is able to reproduce all salient long-range features of the original configurations. Thus we conclude that the information necessary to recreate the long-range structure of SU(3) gauge theory is contained within the center vortex degrees of freedom.