When is the deconfinement phase transition universal?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the universality of the deconfinement phase transition in pure Yang-Mills theories, providing evidence supporting the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture and proposing new conjectures for gauge theories with symplectic groups.

Contribution

The study extends the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture to Sp(N) gauge theories and proposes new criteria for universality of second order deconfinement transitions.

Findings

Evidence supporting the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture for Sp(N) gauge theories

Identification of conditions for universal second order phase transitions

Proposal of new conjectures on gauge theories with universal deconfinement transitions

Abstract

Pure Yang-Mills theory has a finite-temperature phase transition, separating the confined and deconfined bulk phases. Svetitsky and Yaffe conjectured that if this phase transition is of second order, it belongs to the universality class of transitions for particular scalar field theories in one lower dimension. We examine Yang-Mills theory with the symplectic gauge groups Sp(N). We find new evidence supporting the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture and make our own conjecture as to which gauge theories have a universal second order deconfinement phase transition.