Wilson Loop on a Light-Cone Cylinder

QCD without matter and quantized on a light-cone spatial cylinder is considered. For the gauge group SU(N) the theory has N − 1 quantum mechanical degrees of freedom, which describe the color fux that circulates around the the spatial cylinder. In 1+1 dimensions this problem can be solved analytically. I use the solution for SU(2) to compute the Wilson loop phase on the surface of the cylinder and find that it is equal to g2area/4. This result is different from the well known result for flat space. I argue that for SU(N) the Wilson loop phase for a contour on a light-cone spatial cylinder is g2(area)(N −1)/4. The underlying reason for this result is that only the N − 1 dimensional Cartan subgroup of SU(N) is dynamical in this problem. Typeset using REVTEX