The deconfining phase transition in D=2+1 SU(N) gauge theories

TL;DR

This study investigates the nature of the deconfining phase transition in 2+1 dimensional SU(N) gauge theories, revealing a change from second to first order as N increases and providing a continuum limit estimate of the transition temperature.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the order of the deconfining transition across different N and offers a continuum extrapolation of the critical temperature in SU(N) gauge theories.

Findings

Transition is second order for N<4

Transition is weakly first order for N=4

Deconfining temperature fits a specific N-dependent formula

Abstract

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 evidence points to the transition being weakly first order. After extrapolating to the continuum limit, we obtain a deconfining temperature that can be well fitted by Tc/sqrt(sigma) = 0.9026(23) + 0.880(43)/N^2 for all N.