Related papers: Hot Giant Loop Holography
$SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory in three dimensions, with a Chern-Simons term of level $k$ (an integer) added, has two dimensionful coupling constants, $g^2 k$ and $g^2 N$; its possible phases depend on the size of $k$ relative to $N$. For $k \gg…
In order to deepen our understanding of the nature of the deconfinement phase transition for various gauge groups, we investigate SU(4) Yang-Mills theory in 2+1 dimensions. We find that the transition is weakly first order. We perform…
We study the physics of multiple M5-branes compactified on a hyperbolic 3-manifold. On the one hand, it leads to the 3d-3d correspondence which maps an $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal field theory to a pure Chern-Simons theory on the…
We study the two-dimensional gauge theory of the symmetric group S_n describing the statistics of branched n-coverings of Riemann surfaces. We consider the theory defined on the disk and on the sphere in the large-n limit. A non trivial…
We present here the results of our high accuracy simulations of $q\bar q$ potential in $d=4$ SU(3) Yang-Mills theory. We measure this quantity by measuring the {\it Polyakov Loop Correlators} using the {\it exponential variance reduction…
We investigate the thermodynamics and phase structure of $SU(3)$ Yang-Mills theory on $\mathbb{T}^2\times\mathbb{R}^2$ with anisotropic spatial volumes in Euclidean spacetime in lattice numerical simulations and an effective model. In…
We find a new supersymmetric solution of type IIB supergravity which is holographically dual to the planar limit of the four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=2^*$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on $S^4$. We study a probe fundamental string in…
In this talk, we review some recent results of the center vortex model for the infrared sector of SU(3) Yang-Mills theory. Particular emphasis is put on the order of the finite-temperature deconfining phase transition and the geometrical…
We use the recently proposed supergravity approach to large $N$ gauge theories to calculate ordinary and spatial Wilson loops of gauge theories in various dimensions. In this framework we observe an area law for spatial Wilson loops in four…
We study the Z_N symmetry in SU(N)+Higgs theories with the Higgs field in the fundamental representation. The distributions of the Polyakov loop show that the Z_N symmetry is explicitly broken in the Higgs phase. On the other hand, inside…
We show that the problem of computing the vacuum expectation values of gauge invariant operators in the strong coupling limit of topologically massive gauge theory is equivalent to the problem of computing similar operators in the $G_k/G$…
The thermodynamics of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories is studied by computing the two-loop correction to the canonical free energy and to the equation of state for theories with 16, 8 and 4 supercharges in any dimension $4\leq d\leq 10$,…
In the pure large-N Yang-Mills theory there is a quasi-BPS sector that is exactly solvable at large N. It follows an exact beta function and the glueball spectrum in this sector. The main technical tool is a new holomorphic loop equation…
The correlations between the modulus of the Polyakov loop, its phase $\theta$ and the Landau gauge gluon propagator at finite temperature are investigated in connection with the center symmetry for pure Yang-Mills SU(3) theory. In the…
This paper studies in great detail a family of supersymmetric Wilson loop operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory we have recently found. For a generic curve on an S^3 in space-time the loops preserve two supercharges but we will…
The order parameter for the pure Yang-Mills phase transition is the Polyakov loop which encodes the symmetries of the Z_N center of the SU(N) gauge group. On the other side the physical degrees of freedom of any asymptotically free gauge…
We formulate a random matrix-like model for the Polyakov loop in SU(N) Yang-Mills theories. It describes a simplified dynamics in terms of eigenvalue differences. The deconfinement phase transition encoded in center symmetry breaking is…
We revisit the phase diagram of the N=4 SU(N_c) super-Yang-Mills theory coupled to N_f fundamental "quarks" at strong coupling using the gauge-gravity correspondence. We show that in the plane of temperature v.s. baryon chemical potential…
The Polyakov loop variable serves as an order parameter to characterize the confined and deconfined phases of Yang-Mills theory. By integrating out the vector fields in the SU(2) Yang-Mills partition function in one-loop approximation, an…
We describe the entire phase structure of a large number of colour generalized Yang-Mills theories in 1+1 dimensions. This is illustrated by the explicit computation for a quartic plus quadratic model. We show that the Douglas-Kazakov and…