Phase diagram of 3D SU(3) gauge-adjoint Higgs system

Abstract

Thermally reduced QCD leads to three dimensional SU(3) gaugefields coupled to an adjoint scalar field $A_0$. We compute the effective potential in the one-loop approximation and evaluate the VEV's of $TrA_0^2$ and $TrA_0^3$. In the Higgs phase not only the former, but also the latter has a VEV. This happens where the SU(3) gauge symmetry is broken minimally with U(2) still unbroken. It is plausible that in the Higgs phase one has a transition for large enough Higgs selfcoupling to a region where $TrA_0^3$ has no VEV and where the gaugesymmetry is broken maximally to $U(1)\times U(1)$.