Wilsonian effective action for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory with Cho-Faddeev-Niemi-Shabanov decomposition

The Cho-Faddeev-Niemi-Shabanov decomposition of the SU(2) Yang-Mills field is employed for the calculation of the corresponding Wilsonian effective action to one-loop order with covariant gauge fixing. The generation of a mass scale is observed, and the flow of the marginal couplings is studied. Our results indicate that higher-derivative terms of the color-unit-vector $\mathbf{n}$ field are necessary for the description of topologically stable knotlike solitons which have been conjectured to be the large-distance degrees of freedom.