Screening of sources in higher representations of SU(N) gauge theories at zero and finite temperature

Abstract

Completion of the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture in some (2+1) dimensional SU(N) gauge theories allows mapping Polyakov loops in higher representations of the gauge group into suitable conformal operators of the corresponding 2D CFT. As a consequence, the critical exponents of the correlators of these Polyakov loops are determined. The functional form of these correlators suggests a general Ansatz to describe the large-distance screening of higher-representation sources at zero temperature in any space-time dimension. A generalised Wilson loop in which along part of its trajectory a source is converted in a gauge invariant way into higher representations with same N-ality could be used to estimate the decay scale of the unstable strings