TH Thursday Seminar

The chicken or the egg, or who ordered the chiral phase transition?

Name: The chicken or the egg, or who ordered the chiral phase transition?
Start: 2001-03-22T14:00:00+01:00
End: 2001-03-22T15:00:00+01:00
Location: CERN

by Alex KOVNER (CERN-TH & Plymouth)

Thursday 22 Mar 2001, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

TH Auditorium (CERN)

TH Auditorium

CERN

Description

I discuss in detail the deconfining phase transition in Polyakov's confining model (Georgi-Glashow theory) in 2+1 dimensions. I show that the deconfinement is the same as the restoration of the magnetic $Z_2$ symmetry, and discuss the physical mechanism that drives the transition. The somewhat surprising analogy with the chiral phase transition in QCD suggests that the chiral transition may be mostly due to appearance of baryons and antibaryons in the thermal ensemble.