Partial deconfinement in gauge theories

Abstract

We provide the evidence for the existence of partially deconfined phase in large-$N$ gauge theory. In this phase, the SU($M$) subgroup of SU($N$) gauge group deconfines, where $\frac{M}{N}$ changes continuously from zero (confined phase) to one (deconfined phase). The partially deconfined phase may exist in real QCD with $N=3$.

Comments: 7 pages, 8 figures, talk presented at the 37th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2019), 16-22 June 2019, Wuhan, China