Chiral Phase Transition for SU(N) Gauge Theories

We describe the chiral phase transition for vector-like SU(N) gauge theories as a function of the number of quark flavors Nf by making use of an anomaly-induced effective potential. The potential depends explicitly on the full beta-function and the anomalous dimension \gamma of the quark mass operator. By using this potential we argue that chiral symmetry is restored for \gamma <1. A perturbative computation of \gamma then leads to an estimate of the critical value Nf^c for the transition.