The Deconfinement Transition in SO(3) Gauge Theory

The SO(3) lattice gauge theory with a Villain form of action was investigated by Monte Carlo techniques on asymmetric lattices with Nt = 2 and 4, where Nt is the number of sites in the temporal extent. Unlike the results for higher Nt, only one transition of second order was found for Nt = 2 . An extended action with an irrelevant term to suppress Z_2 monopoles enabled us to get a better view of the deconfinement transition as the effects of bulk transition could be suppressed as well. Although the action has no global Z_2 symmetry for the SO(3) theory, unlike the SU(2) theory at finite temperature, our study revealed a second order deconfinement transition, with properties similar to the deconfinement transition of SU(2).