Dissolved deconfinement: Phase Structure of large N gauge theories with fundamental matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how adding fundamental matter fields affects the phase transition in large N gauge theories on S^3 x R, revealing a critical point where the first order transition turns into a smooth crossover, with implications for QCD.

Contribution

It introduces the effect of fundamental matter on the phase structure of large N gauge theories, showing the transition line terminates at a critical point and transitions to a crossover.

Findings

First order deconfinement transition line terminates at a critical point as N_f/N increases.

Beyond the critical point, the theory exhibits a smooth crossover instead of a phase transition.

Results suggest a possible explanation for the crossover behavior observed in QCD.

Abstract

A class of large N SU(N) gauge theories on a compact manifold S^3 X R (with possible inclusion of adjoint matter) is known to show first order deconfinement transition at the deconfinement temperature. This includes the familiar example of pure YM theory and N=4 SYM theory. Here we study the effect of introduction of N_f fundamental matter fields in the phase diagram of the above mentioned gauge theories at small coupling and in the limit of large N and finite N_f/N. We find some interesting features like the termination of the line of first order deconfinement phase transition at a critical point as the ratio N_f/N is increased and absence of deconfinement transition thereafter (there is only a smooth crossover). This result may have some implication for QCD, which unlike a pure gauge theory does not show a first order deconfinement transition and only displays a smooth crossover at the transition temperature.