Topological Nature of Deconfinement Transition in QCD

Abstract

We propose a new conjecture to determine the confinement-deconfinement transition by using the imaginary chemical potential. The imaginary chemical potential can be treated as the AharonovBohm phase and then an analogy of the topological order suggests that the Roberge-Weiss endpoint would define the temperature of the confinement-deconfinement transition. Based on the topological nature, we can construct a new quantum order-parameter which describes the confinementdeconfinement transition. This quantity is defined as the integral of the quark number susceptibility along the closed loop of θ = 0 ∼ 2π where θ is the dimensionless imaginary chemical potential. Expected behavior of the quantity at finite temperature is discussed and its asymptotic behaviors are drawn.