Related papers: Topological features of the deconfinement transiti…
We summarize and extend evidence that the deconfinement phase transition in Yang-Mills theories can be viewed as change of effective non-perturbative degrees of freedom and of symmetries of their interactions. In short, the strings in four…
New results on the topology of the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory are presented. At zero temperature we obtain the value of the topological susceptibility by using the recently introduced smeared operators as well as a properly renormalized…
We give an analytical derivation of the confinement/deconfinement phase transition at finite temperature in the $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory in the $D$-dimensional space time for $D>2$. We elucidate what is the mechanism for quark confinement…
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…
A study of the center symmetric phase of SU(2) Yang Mills theory is presented. Realization of the center symmetry is shown to result from non-perturbative gauge fixing. Dictated by the center symmetry, this phase exhibits already at the…
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 summarize recent nonperturbative results obtained for the thermodynamics of an SU(2) and an SU(3) Yang-Mills theory being in its deconfining (electric) phase. Emphasis is put on an explanation of the concepts involved. The presentation…
We study the thermodynamics of large N pure 2+1 dimensional Yang-Mills theory on a small spatial sphere. By studying the effective action for the Polyakov loop order parameter, we show analytically that the theory has a second order…
Characterizing the vacuum of a thermalized SU(3) Yang-Mills theory in the dual Ginzburg-Landau description, the possibility of topologically nontrivial, classical monopole fields in the deconfining phase is explored. These fields are…
We study the bosonic matrix model obtained as the high-temperature limit of two-dimensional maximally supersymmetric SU($N$) Yang-Mills theory. So far, no consensus about the order of the deconfinement transition in this theory has been…
The phase diagram on the $\theta$-$T$ plane in four dimensional SU(3) Yang-Mills theory is explored. We revisit the $\theta$ dependence of the deconfinement transition temperature, $T_c(\theta)$, on the lattice through the constraint…
In the deconfinement phase of quenched SU(2) Yang-Mills theory the spectrum and localization properties of the eigenmodes of the overlap Dirac operator with antiperiodic boundary conditions are strongly dependent on the sign of the average…
In a recent work we have proposed a perturbative approach for the study of the phase transition of pure Yang-Mills theories at finite temperature. This is based on a simple massive extension of background field methods in the Landau-DeWitt…
Phase and modulus of an energy- and pressure-free, composite and adjoint field in an SU(2) Yang-Mills theory are computed. This field is generated by trivial holonomy calorons of topological charge one. It possesses nontrivial $S_1$-winding…
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 present results from numerical lattice calculations of SU(4) Yang-Mills theory. This work has two goals: to determine the order of the finite temperature deconfinement transition on an $N_t = 6$ lattice and to study the string tensions…
The susceptibilities of the real and imaginary parts, as well as of the modulus of the Polyakov loop, are computed in SU(3) lattice gauge theory. We show that the ratios of these susceptibilities are excellent probes of the deconfinement…
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…
These lectures contain an introduction to instantons, calorons and dyons of the Yang--Mills gauge theory. Since we are interested in the mechanism of confinement and of the deconfinement phase transition at some critical temperature, the…
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…