Understand
We demonstrate a novel feature of certain phase transitions in theories with large rank symmetry group that exhibit specific types of non-local interactions.
- A typical example of such a theory is a large-$N$ gauge theory where by `non-local interaction' we mean the all-to-all coupling of color degrees of freedom.
- Recently it has been pointed out that nontrivial features of the confinement/deconfinement transition are understood as consequences of the coexistence of the confined and deconfined phases on the group manifold describing the color degrees of freedom.
- While these novel features of the confinement/deconfinement transition are analogous to the two-phase coexistence at the first order transition of more familiar local theories, various differences such as the partial breaking of the symmetry group appear due to the non-local interaction.