A gauge-independent mechanism for confinement and mass gap: Part 1 - The general framework

We propose a gauge-independent mechanism for the area-law behavior of Wilson loop expectation values in terms of worldsheets spanning Wilson loops interacting with the spin foams that contribute to the vacuum partition function. The method uses an exact transformation of lattice-regularized Yang-Mills theory that is valid for all couplings. Within this framework, some natural conjectures can be made as to what physical mechanism enforces the confinement property in the continuum (weak coupling) limit. Details for the SU(2) case in three space-time dimensions are provided in a companion paper.