Structure and properties of the vacuum of the Twisted Eguchi-Kawai model

Abstract

We investigate numerically the phase structure of the Twisted Eguchi-Kawai (TEK) model in four dimensions. In the numerical simulations of the zero temperature TEK model (using a symmetric twist) we observe the existence of new phases that break its centre symmetry at intermediate lattice couplings and for large SU(N) gauge groups. This effect can be explained by the contribution of diagonal configurations with collapsed eigenvalues, which are particular cases of ``generalised fluxons''. We also investigate finite temperature versions of the TEK model using anisotropic lattice couplings, where in particular we find van Baal fluxons contributing at large anisotropies.