Confinement and the center of the gauge group

TL;DR

This paper explores the role of the gauge group's center in confinement phenomena, focusing on G(2) Yang-Mills theory, which lacks a center, and examines phase transitions and symmetry breaking to understand confinement mechanisms.

Contribution

It investigates the confinement mechanism in G(2) Yang-Mills theory and its relation to SU(3) by numerical simulations, highlighting the role of the gauge group's center.

Findings

G(2) Yang-Mills exhibits a first order deconfinement transition.

G(2) gauge symmetry can be broken to SU(3) via the Higgs mechanism.

Deconfinement transition properties are studied in relation to gauge symmetry breaking.

Abstract

The question of the role of the center of the gauge group in the phenomenon of confinement in Yang-Mills theory is addressed. The investigation is performed from the most general perspective of considering all possible choices for the gauge symmetry group. In this context, an interesting role is played by G(2) Yang-Mills theory: the simplest pure gauge theory with a trivial center and without 't Hooft flux vortices. Numerical simulations show the presence of a first order finite temperature deconfinement phase transition in G(2) Yang-Mills theory in (3+1) dimensions. Interestingly, the G(2) gauge symmetry can be broken to an SU(3) subgroup by the Higgs mechanism. We investigate the relation between the deconfinement phase transition in G(2) and SU(3) Yang-Mills theories by numerical simulations in the G(2) gauge-Higgs system.