The nonperturbative phase diagram of the bosonic BMN matrix model

Abstract

We study the thermal phase transition of the bosonic BMN model which is a mass deformed version of the bosonic part of the BFSS model. Our results connect the massless region of the phase diagram described by the bosonic BFSS model with the large-mass region, where the model is analytically solvable. We observe that at finite value of the matrix size $N$, the critical region is smeared over a small temperature range. The model has a single critical temperature, which arises as the large $N$ limit of two apparent transitions at finite $N$. We emphasise the vital role played by finite $N$ corrections in the confined phase and illustrate this with a novel treatment of the noninteracting Gaussian model.