Triality in QCD at Zero and Finite Temperature: A New Direction

Abstract

Discrete symmetries in grand canonical ensembles and in ensembles canonical with respect to triality are investigated. We speculate about the general phase structure of finite temperature gauge theories with discrete $Z(N)$ symmetry. Low and high temperature phases turn out to be different in both ensembles even for infinite systems. It is argued that gauge theories with matter fields in the fundamental representation should be treated in ensembles canonical with respect to triality if one wants to avoid unphysical predictions. Further, we discuss as a physical consequence of such a treatment the impossibility of the existence of metastable phases in the quark-gluon plasma.

15 pages, latex, no figures, to appear in Nucl.Phys.B

References in corpus (7)

• Quantum Hair on Black Holes
• Partition function for the eigenvalues of the Wilson line
• Hot Gauge Theories and $Z_N$ Phases
• Z_N Phases in Hot Gauge Theories
• Wilson Loops, Winding modes, and Domain Walls in Finite Temperature QCD
• Phase of the Wilson Line
• Fresh look on triality

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• Phase structure and confinement properties of noncompact gauge theories I
• Towards the Deconfinement Phase Transition in Hot Gauge Theories
• Properties of canonical fermion determinants with a fixed quark number
• Absence of Physical Walls in Hot Gauge Theories
• The Equation of State and Multiparticle Production