External Fields and Color Confinement

TL;DR

This paper investigates how external magnetic fields affect phase transitions in various lattice gauge theories, revealing that non-Abelian theories exhibit a decrease in deconfinement temperature with increasing field strength.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the impact of external fields on deconfinement temperatures in both Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge theories.

Findings

Deconfinement temperature in SU(2) and SU(3) decreases with stronger external chromomagnetic fields.

External fields do not influence the phase transition in compact U(1).

The dependence of deconfinement temperature on external fields is specific to non-Abelian theories.

Abstract

U(1), SU(2), and SU(3) lattice gauge theories in presence of external fields are investigated both in (3+1) and (2+1) dimensions. The free energy of gauge systems has been measured. While the phase transition in compact U(1) is not influenced by the strength of an external constant magnetic field, the deconfinement temperature for SU(2) and SU(3) gauge systems in a constant abelian chromomagnetic field decreases when the strength of the applied field increases. The dependence of the deconfinement temperature on the strength of an external constant chromomagnetic field seems to be a peculiar feature of non abelian gauge theories.