Related papers: Thermal phase transition in Yang-Mills matrix mode…
A random vortex world-surface model for the infrared sector of Sp(2) Yang-Mills theory is constructed. The Sp(2) gauge group, while allowing for the same set of center vortex fluxes as the SU(2) gauge group, induces a significantly…
The question of the role of the center of the gauge group in the phenomenon of confinement in Yang-Mills theory is addressed. The investigation is performed from the most general perspective of considering all possible choices for the gauge…
We have previously found analytically a very unusual and unexpected form of confinement in SU(3) Yang-Mills theory. This confinement occurs in the deconfined phase of the theory. The free energy of a single static test quark diverges, even…
An analytical and nonperturbative approach to SU(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills thermodynamics is developed and applied. Each theory comes in three phases: A deconfining, a preconfining, and a confining one. We show how macroscopic and inert…
We perform large scale simulations to characterize the transition in quenched QCD. It is shown by a rigorous finite size scaling that the transition is of first order. After this qualitative feature quantitative results are obtained with…
We consider QCD with two degenerate flavors of light quarks(up and down) at asymptotically high isospin chemical potential with zero baryon chemical potential and calculate for the first time a quantitative expression for the critical…
$SU(N)$ 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…
The deconfining transition in non-Abelian gauge theory is known to occur by a condensation of Wilson lines. By expanding around an appropriate Wilson line background, it is possible at large $N$ to analytically continue the confining phase…
We study analytically the phase diagram of the pure $SU(N)$ lattice gauge theory at finite temperature, and we attempt to estimate the critical deconfinement temperature. We apply large $N$ techniques to the Wilson and to the Heat Kernel…
The center vortex model for the infrared sector of Yang-Mills theory, previously studied for the SU(2) gauge group, is extended to SU(3). This model is based on the assumption that vortex world-surfaces can be viewed as random surfaces in…
We continue our study of the large N phase transition in q-deformed Yang-Mills theory on the sphere and its role in connecting topological strings to black hole entropy. We study in detail the chiral theory defined in terms of uncoupled…
We calculate the continuum value of the deconfining temperature in units of the string tension for SU(4), SU(6) and SU(8) gauge theories, and we recalculate its value for SU(2) and SU(3). We find that the $N$-dependence for $2 \leq N \leq…
We analyze large N phase transitions for U(N) q-deformed two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory on the sphere. We determine the phase diagram of the model and we show that, for small values of the deformation parameter, the theory exhibits a…
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…
We review the thermodynamics of the confined and unconfined phases of superconformal Yang-Mills at large N on a three-sphere, focussing especially on the confinement-deconfinement transition. We determine an N-dependent phase boundary and…
Black hole solutions of type IIB supergravity have been previously constructed that describe the N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills plasma with an anisotropic spatial deformation. The zero temperature limit of these black holes approach a…
The dual superconductivity is a promising mechanism for quark confinement. We proposed the non-Abelian dual superconductivity picture for SU(3) Yang-Mills theory, and demonstrated the restricted field dominance (called conventionally…
We study the deconfining transition of SU(N) gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions for N ranging between N=2 and N=8. We confirm that the transition is second order for N<4 and first order for N>4. For the more delicate case of SU(4) all our…
We analyze the phase structure of $SU(\infty)$ gauge theory at finite temperature using matrix models. Our basic assumption is that the effective potential is dominated by double-trace terms for the Polyakov loops. As a function of the…
The effect of world-sheet boundaries on the temperature-dependence of bosonic string theory is studied to first order in string perturbation theory. The high- temperature behaviour of a theory with Dirichlet boundary conditions has features…