Speaker
Description
We investigate the finite-temperature phase structure of the four-dimensional SU(2) adjoint Higgs model, with particular emphasis on the possible deconfinement–Higgs continuity: the conjecture that the high-temperature deconfined phase of Yang–Mills theory and the finite-temperature Higgs phase belong to the same thermodynamic phase. We begin with an analysis of the global symmetries, showing that the Higgs and deconfined regimes are expected to exhibit the same symmetry pattern, in contrast to the confined phase. This observation supports the possibility of deconfinement–Higgs continuity, although it does not rule out a phase transition between the deconfined and Higgs phases that is unrelated to global symmetries. We further carry out a deformation analysis, which provides an explicit continuous path connecting the “deconfined symmetric” and “deconfined Higgs” regions in a reduced three-dimensional lattice model. Taken together, these results suggest that the Higgs and deconfined regimes can be continuously connected, while the confined phase remains separated from them.