The Mixed Non-Abelian Coulomb Gas in Two Dimensions

Abstract

The statistical mechanics of a mixed gas of adjoint and fundamental representation charges interacting via 1+1-dimensional U(N) gauge fields is investigated. In the limit of large N we show that there is a first order deconfining phase transition for low densities of fundamental charges. As the density of fundamental charges becomes comparable to the adjoint charge density the phase transition becomes a third order one.