Planar Limit of Orientifold Field Theories and Emergent Center Symmetry

TL;DR

This paper explores how orientifold field theories, which are non-supersymmetric, dynamically develop full center symmetry in the large-N limit, leading to confinement properties similar to supersymmetric Yang--Mills theories.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of full Z_N center symmetry in orientifold theories at large N, explaining confinement mechanisms and phase transition similarities with supersymmetric counterparts.

Findings

Full Z_N center symmetry emerges dynamically at large N.

Existence of stable k-strings identical to supersymmetric theories.

Confinement-deconfinement transition features match up to 1/N corrections.

Abstract

We consider orientifold field theories (i.e. SU(N) Yang--Mills theories with fermions in the two-index symmetric or antisymmetric representations) on R3xS1 where the compact dimension can be either temporal or spatial. These theories are planar equivalent to supersymmetric Yang--Mills. The latter has Z_N center symmetry. The famous Polyakov criterion establishing confinement-deconfinement phase transition as that from Z_N symmetric to Z_N broken phase applies. At the Lagrangian level the orientifold theories have at most a Z_2 center. We discuss how the full Z_N center symmetry dynamically emerges in the orientifold theories in the limit N-->infinity. In the confining phase the manifestation of this enhancement is the existence of stable k-strings in the large-N limit of the orientifold theories. These strings are identical to those of supersymmetric Yang--Mills theories. We argue that critical temperatures (and other features) of the confinement-deconfinement phase transition are the same in the orientifold daughters and their supersymmetric parent up to 1/N corrections. We also discuss the Abelian and non-Abelian confining regimes of four-dimensional QCD-like theories.