LAUSR

We study decomposition of SU(2) gauge field into monopole and monopoleless components. After fixing the Maximal Abelian gauge in SU(2) lattice gauge theory with Wilson action we decompose the nonabelian gauge field into the Abelian field created by monopoles and the modified nonabelian field with monopoles removed. We then calculate respective static potentials in the fundamental and adjoint representations and confirm earlier findings that the sum of these potentials approximates the nonabelian static potential with good precision at all distances considered. Repeating these computations at three lattice spacings we find that in both representations the approximation becomes better with decreasing lattice spacing. Our results thus suggest that this approximation becomes exact in the continuum limit. We further find the same relation (for one lattice spacing) to be valid also in the cases of improved lattice action and in the theory with quarks.