Magnetic and Thermodynamic Stability of SU(2) Yang-Mills Theory

Abstract

SU(2) Yang-Mills theory at finite extension or, equivalently, at finite temperature is probed by a homogeneous chromomagnetic field. We use a recent modified axial gauge formulation which has the novel feature of respecting the center symmetry in perturbation theory. The characteristic properties of the Z_2-symmetric phase, an extension-dependent mass term and antiperiodic boundary conditions, provide stabilization against magnetic field formation for sufficiently small extension or high temperature. In an extension of this investigation to the deconfined phase with broken center symmetry, the combined constraints of thermodynamic and magnetic stability are shown to yield many of the high temperature properties of lattice SU(2) gauge theory.

arXiv comment27 pages, LATEX, 7 postscript figures, corrected typos

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Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Phases and Residual Gauge Symmetries of Higgs Models
• Polyakov Loop Dynamics in the Center Symmetric Phase
• Confining Properties of the Homogeneous Self-Dual Field and the Effective Potential in SU(2) Yang-Mills Theory
• Topological Concepts in Gauge Theories