Vortex free energy and deconfinement in center-blind discretizations of Yang-Mills theories

TL;DR

This paper investigates vortex free energy and deconfinement in SO(3) lattice gauge theory at finite temperature, revealing differences from fundamental representation discretizations and employing parallel tempering to overcome ergodicity issues.

Contribution

It introduces a method to measure vortex free energy in SO(3) gauge theory and identifies a deconfinement transition using parallel tempering to address tunneling barriers.

Findings

Deconfinement transition identified at a critical coupling.

Vortex free energy behavior differs from fundamental discretizations.

Parallel tempering effectively overcomes ergodicity issues.

Abstract

Maximal 't Hooft loops are studied in SO(3) lattice gauge theory at finite temperature T. Tunneling barriers among twist sectors causing loss of ergodicity for local update algorithms are overcome through parallel tempering, enabling us to measure the vortex free energy F and to identify a deconfinement transition at some $\beta_A^{crit}$. The behavior of F below $\beta_A^{crit}$ shows however striking differences with what is expected from discretizations in the fundamental representation.