Thermodynamics of SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in 2 + 1 dimensions II — The deconfined phase

Abstract

Abstract We present a non-perturbative study of the equation of state in the deconfined phase of Yang-Mills theories in D = 2 + 1 dimensions. We introduce a holographic model, based on the improved holographic QCD model, from which we derive a non-trivial relation between the order of the deconfinement phase transition and the behavior of the trace of the energy-momentum tensor as a function of the temperature T. We compare the theoretical predictions of this holographic model with a new set of high-precision numerical results from lattice simulations of SU(N) theories with N = 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 colors. The latter reveal that, similarly to the D = 3 + 1 case, the bulk equilibrium thermodynamic quantities (pressure, trace of the energy-momentum tensor, energy density and entropy density) exhibit nearly perfect proportionality to the number of gluons, and can be successfully compared with the holographic predictions in a broad range of temperatures. Finally, we also show that, again similarly to the D = 3 + 1 case, the trace of the energy-momentum tensor appears to be proportional to T 2 in a wide temperature range, starting from approximately 1.2 T c , where T c denotes the critical deconfinement temperature.