Z₂ monopoles, vortices and the universality of the SU(2) deconfinement transition

Abstract

We investigate the effect of Z₂ magnetic monopoles and vortices on the finite temperature deconfinement phase transition in the fundamental - adjoint SU(2) lattice gauge theory. In the limit of complete suppression of the Z₂ monopoles, the mixed action for the SU(2) theory in its Villain form is shown to be self-dual under the exchange of the fundamental and adjoint couplings. By further suppressing the Z₂ vortices we show that the extended model reduces to the Wilson action with a modified coupling. The universality of the SU(2) deconfinement phase transition with the Ising model is therefore expected to remain intact in the entire plane of the fundamental-adjoint couplings in the continuum limit. The self-duality arguments related to the suppression of Z₂ monopoles are also applicable to the Villain form of mixed action for the SU(N) theory with Z_N magnetic monopoles.