ADJOINT NON-ABELIAN COULOMB GAS AT LARGE N

The non-Abelian analog of the classical Coulomb gas is discussed. The statistical mechanics of arrays of classical particles which transform under various representations of a non-Abelian gauge group and which interact through non-Abelian electric fields are considered, The probl em is formulated on the lattice and, for the case of adjoint charges, it is solved in the large-N limit. The explicit solution exhibits a fi rst-order confinement-deconfinement phase transition with computable p roperties, In one dimension, the solution has a continuum limit which describes 1+1-dimensional quantum chromodynamics (QCD) with heavy adjo int matter.