Exotic phases of finite temperature SU(N) gauge theories

Abstract

We calculate the phase diagrams at high temperature of SU(N) gauge theories with massive fermions by minimizing the one-loop effective potential. Considering fermions in the adjoint (Adj) representation at various N we observe a variety of phases when Nf >= 2 Majorana flavours and periodic boundary conditions are applied to fermions. Also the confined phase is perturbatively accessible. For N = 3, we add Fundamental (F) representation fermions with antiperiodic boundary conditions to adjoint QCD to show how the Z(3)-symmetry breaks in the confined phase.

Comments: 4 pages, 3 figures, talk presented at Strong and ElectroWeak Matter (SEWM08) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 26-29 August 2008