Fuzzy spheres appear as classical solutions in a matrix model obtained via dimensional reduction of 3-dimensional Yang-Mills theory with the Chern-Simons term. Well-defined perturbative expansion around these solutions can be formulated even for finite matrix size, and in the case of k coincident fuzzy spheres it gives rise to a regularized U(k) gauge theory on a noncommutative geometry. Here we study the matrix model nonperturbatively by Monte Carlo simulation. The system undergoes a first order phase transition as we change the coefficient (α) of the Chern-Simons term. In the small α phase, the large N properties of the system are qualitatively the same as in the pure Yang-Mills model (α = 0), whereas in the large α phase a single fuzzy sphere emerges dynamically. Various 'multi fuzzy spheres' are observed as meta-stable states, and we argue in particular that the k coincident fuzzy spheres cannot be realized as the true vacuum in this model even in the large N limit. We also perform one-loop calculations of various observables for arbitrary k including k = 1. Comparison with our Monte Carlo data suggests that higher order corrections are suppressed in the large N limit.

It is expected that the Gregory-Laflamme (GL) instability in the black string in gravity is related to the Rayleigh-Plateau instability in fluid mechanics. Especially, the orders of the phase transitions associated with these instabilities depend on the number of the transverse space dimensions, and they are of first and second order below and above the critical dimension. Through the gauge-gravity correspondence, the GL instability is conjectured to be thermodynamically related to the Hagedorn instability in large-N gauge theories, and it leads to a prediction that the order of the confinement-deconfinement transition associated with the Hagedorn instability may depend on the transverse dimension. We test this conjecture in the D-dimensional bosonic D0-brane model using numerical simulation and the 1/D expansion, and confirm the expected D dependence.

The IKKT matrix model is a promising candidate for a nonperturbative formulation of superstring theory. In this model, spacetime is conjectured to emerge dynamically from the microscopic matrix degrees of freedom in the large-N limit. Indeed in the Lorentzian version, Monte Carlo studies suggested the emergence of (3+1)-dimensional expanding spacetime. Here we study the Euclidean version instead, and investigate an alternative scenario for dynamical compactification of extra dimensions via the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) of 10D rotational symmetry. We perform numerical simulations based on the complex Langevin method (CLM) in order to avoid a severe sign problem. Furthermore, in order to avoid the singular-drift problem in the CLM, we deform the model and determine the SSB pattern as we vary the deformation parameter. From these results, we conclude that the original model has an SO(3) symmetric vacuum, which is consistent with previous results obtained by the Gaussian expansion method (GEM). We also apply the GEM to the deformed matrix model and find consistency with the results obtained by the CLM.

The sign problem is a notorious problem, which occurs in Monte Carlo simulations of a system with the partition function whose integrand is not real positive. The basic idea of the factorization method applied on such a system is to control some observables in order to determine and sample efficiently the region of configuration space which gives important contribution to the partition function. We argue that it is crucial to choose appropriately the set of the observables to be controlled in order for the method to work successfully in a general system. This is demonstrated by an explicit example, in which it turns out to be necessary to control more than one observable. Extrapolation to large system size is possible due to the nice scaling properties of the factorized functions, and known results obtained by an analytic method are shown to be consistently reproduced.

It has been known that the dynamics of k coincident D-branes in string theory is described effectively by U(k) Yang-Mills theory at low energy. While these configurations appear as classical solutions in matrix models, it was not clear whether it is possible to realize the k = 1 case as the true vacuum. The massive Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons matrix model has classical solutions corresponding to all the representations of the SU(2) algebra, and provides an opportunity to address the above issue on a firm ground. We investigate the phase structure of the model, and find in particular that there exists a parameter region where O(N ) copies of the spin-1/2 representation appear as the true vacuum, thus realizing a nontrivial gauge group dynamically. Such configurations are analogous to the ones that are interpreted in the BMN matrix model as coinciding transverse 5-branes in M-theory.