Chiral phase transition for SU(N) gauge theories via an effective Lagrangian approach - art. no. 056004

We study the chiral phase transition for vectorlike SU(N) gauge theories as a function of the number of quark flavors N-f by making use of an anomaly- induced effective potential. We modify an effective potential of a previous work, suggested for N-f<N, and apply it to larger values of N-f where the phase transition is expected to occur. The new effective potential depends explicitly on the full beta function and the anomalous dimension gamma of t he quark mass operator. By using this potential we argue that chiral symmet ry is restored for gamma<1. A perturbative computation of gamma then leads to an estimate of the critical value N-f(c) for the transition. [S0556-2821 (99)03717-0].