A Scaling Relation, $Z_m$-type Deconfinement Phases and Imaginary Chemical Potentials in Finite Temperature Large-$N$ Gauge Theories

TL;DR

This paper uncovers a universal scaling relation for Polyakov loop potentials in large-$N$ gauge theories at finite temperature, revealing the emergence of $Z_m$-type deconfinement phases under imaginary chemical potentials across various models.

Contribution

It establishes a scaling relation for Polyakov loop effective potentials and demonstrates the occurrence of $Z_m$ phases in multiple large-$N$ gauge theories with imaginary chemical potentials.

Findings

Polyakov loop potentials obey a specific temperature scaling relation.

$Z_m$ deconfinement phases occur with imaginary chemical potentials.

Monte-Carlo results support the existence of $Z_m$ phases.

Abstract

We show that the effective potentials for the Polyakov loops in finite temperature SU$(N)$ gauge theories obey a certain scaling relation with respect to temperature in the large-$N$ limit. This scaling relation strongly constrains the possible terms in the Polyakov loop effective potentials. Moreover, by using the effective potentials in the presence of imaginary chemical potentials or imaginary angular velocities in several models, we find that phase transitions to $Z_m$-type deconfinement phases ($Z_m$ phase) occur, where the eigenvalues of the Polyakov loop are distributed $Z_m$ symmetrically. Physical quantities in the $Z_m$ phase obey the scaling properties of the effective potential. The models include Yang-Mills (YM) theories, the bosonic BFSS matrix model and ${\mathcal N}=4$ supersymmetric YM theory on $S^3$. Thus, the phase diagrams of large-$N$ gauge theories with imaginary chemical potentials are very rich and the stable $Z_m$ phase would be ubiquitous. Monte-Carlo calculations also support this. As a related topic, we discuss the phase diagrams of large-$N$ YM theories with real angular velocities in finite volume spaces.