Duality and oblique confinement

By construction, renormalized non-Abelian gauge theories do not allow for pointlike magnetic charges. However, a procedure exists called 'the Abelian projection', that transforms these theories into apparently non-renormalizable Abelian theories with magnetic point charges. The small-distance treatment of magnetic charges in gauge theories differs completely from that of electric charges. Yet the effects of these charges, in particular in the infrared region, are very similar. This is expressed in the notion called 'duality', and allows one to predict the possibility of exotic confinement modes, 'oblique confinement'. An exact duality relation is shown to exist which applies to electric and magnetic fluxes in a box.