Exceptional deconfinement in image gauge theory Original Research Article

The image center symmetry plays an important role in the deconfinement phase transition of image Yang–Mills theory at finite temperature. The exceptional group image is the smallest simply connected gauge group with a trivial center. Hence, there is no symmetry reason why the low- and high-temperature regimes in image Yang–Mills theory should be separated by a phase transition. Still, we present numerical evidence for the presence of a first order deconfinement phase transition at finite temperature. Via the Higgs mechanism, image breaks to its image subgroup when a scalar field in the fundamental image representation acquires a vacuum expectation value v. Varying v we investigate how the image deconfinement transition is related to the one in image Yang–Mills theory. Interestingly, the two transitions seem to be disconnected. We also discuss a potential dynamical mechanism that may explain this behavior.