Magnetic flux loop in high-energy heavy-ion collisions

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We consider the expectation value of a magnetic flux loop in the immediate forward light cone of collisions of heavy nuclei at high energies. Such collisions are characterized by a non-linear scale Qₛ where color fields become strong. We find that loops of area greater than 2/Qₛ² exhibit area law behavior, which determines the scale of elementary flux excitations ("vortices"). We also estimate the magnetic string tension, sigmaₘ = 0.12 Qₛ². By the time t 1/Qₛ even small loops satisfy an area law. We describe corrections to the propagator of semi-hard gluons at very early times in the background of fluctuating magnetic fields.