Flux tubes, Quark Confinement and Exotic Hadrons

Understanding how color is confined in QCD, and the binding of quarks into hadrons, is one of the major unresolved challenges in fundamental physics. The central piece in this puzzle is the chromoelectric flux tube, or confining string, which holds quarks together. In recent years, tantalizing new insights into the dynamical properties of confining strings have been obtained using various theoretical tools such as effective string theory, integrability, the modern S-matrix bootstrap, and gauge/gravity duality. Lattice gauge theory supplies important information about the spectrum of flux tube excitations. Finally, the recent experimental discovery of heavy flavor tetraquarks provides a direct observational probe of flux tube junctions. This conference will bring together experts in these different fields to initiate the exchange of ideas and stimulate future cross-disciplinary developments.