Dynamical restoration of ZN symmetry in SU(N) + Higgs theories

Abstract We study the Z N symmetry in S U ( N ) + Higgs theories with the Higgs field in the fundamental representation. The distributions of the Polyakov loop show that the Z N symmetry is explicitly broken in the Higgs phase. On the other hand inside the Higgs symmetric phase the Polyakov loop distributions and other physical observables exhibit the Z N symmetry. This effective realization of the Z N symmetry in the theory changes the nature of the confinement–deconfinement transition. We argue that the Z N symmetry will lead to time independent topological defect solutions in the Higgs symmetric deconfined phase which will play important role at high temperatures.