Thermal effects on the low energy N=2 SUSY Yang-Mills theory -: art. no. 065014

Using the low energy effective action of the N = 2 supersymmetric SU(2) Yang-Mills theory we calculate the free energy, Omega. at finite temperature, both in the semiclassical region and in the dual monopole-dyon theory. Ln all regions Omega depends on both the temperature T and the appropriate moduli parameter, and is thus minimized only for specific values of the moduli parameter, in contrast with the T = 0 case where the energy vanishes all over moduli space. Within the validity of perturbation theory, we find that the finite temperature Yang-Mills theory is stable only at definite points in moduli space, i.e. for a specific value of the monopole-dyon mass or when the scalar field expectation value goes to infinity. [S0556-2821(99)01618-5].