Towards a Topological Mechanism of Quark Confinement

We report on new analyses of the topological and chiral vacuum structure of four-dimensional QCD on the lattice. Correlation functions as well as visualization of monopole currents in the maximally Abelian gauge emphasize their topological origin and gauge invariant characterization. The (anti)selfdual character of strong vacuum fluctuations is revealed by smoothing. In full QCD, (anti)instanton positions are also centers of the local chiral condensate and quark charge density. Most results turn out generically independent of the action and the cooling/smoothing method.