The Fredenhagen-Marcu operator in the gauge-Higgs Z(2) LGT at finite temperature

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Fredenhagen-Marcu operator as a potential order parameter for the deconfinement transition in a finite-temperature gauge-matter system, specifically in a (2+1)D Z(2) lattice gauge theory with Higgs fields.

Contribution

It demonstrates through numerical simulations that the Fredenhagen-Marcu operator can effectively distinguish the deconfinement phase from Higgs and confinement phases in the Z(2) gauge-Higgs model.

Findings

Fredenhagen-Marcu operator distinguishes deconfinement from other phases.

Numerical evidence supports its role as an order parameter.

Applicable to finite-temperature gauge-matter systems.

Abstract

We explore the possibility to use the Fredenhagen-Marcu operator as an order parameter of the deconfinement phase transition in gauge-matter systems at finite temperature. Concretely, we compute by numerical simulations this operator in the (2+1)-dimensional Z(2) lattice gauge theory (LGT) with Z(2) gauge fields coupled to Z(2)-valued Higgs fields. Our conclusion is that the Fredenhagen-Marcu operator can indeed serve as an order parameter capable of distinguishing the deconfinement phase from the Higgs and confinement phases of the theory.