Confinement/Deconfinement Transition of Large N Gauge Theories in Perturbation Theory with N_f Fundamentals: N_f/N Finite

Abstract

In hep-th/0402219 we considered large N zero-coupling d-dimensional U(N) gauge theories, with N_f matter fields in the fundamental representation on a compact spatial manifold S^{d-1}x time, with N_f/N finite. This class of theories undergo a 3rd order deconfinement transition. As a consequence it was proposed that the dual string theory has a 3rd order phase-transition to a black hole at high temperature. In this paper we argue that the same conclusions are valid for such theories at any finite order in perturbation theory in the &#39;t Hooft coupling lambda and N_f/N. It is conjectured that this continues to hold at strong coupling and finite value of N_f/N < (1/lambda), which suggests that the supergravity approximation to the dual string theory has a 3rd order thermal phase transition to a large black hole.