We study the phase structure of N =1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on R 3 × S 1 , with massive gauginos, periodic around the S 1 , with Sp(2N ) (N ≥2), Spin(N ) (N ≥5), G 2 , F 4 , E 6 , E 7 , E 8 gauge groups. As the gaugino mass m is increased, with S 1 size and strong coupling scale fixed, we find a first-order phase transition both for theories with and without a center. This semiclassically calculable transition is driven, as in SU (N ) and G 2 [1,2], by a competition between monopole-instantons and exotic topological "molecules"-"neutral" or "magnetic" bions. We compute the trace of the Polyakov loop and its twopoint correlator near the transition. We find a behavior similar to the one observed near the thermal deconfinement transition in the corresponding pure Yang-Mills (YM) theory in lattice studies (whenever available). Our results lend further support to the conjectured continuity, as a function of m, between the quantum phase transition studied here and the thermal deconfinement transition in YM theory. We also study the θ-angle dependence of the transition, elaborate on the importance of the quantum-corrected moduli-space metric at large N , and offer comments for the future.

We study finite-temperature N = 1 SU (2) super Yang-Mills theory, compactified on a spatial circle of size L with supersymmetric boundary conditions. In the semiclassical small-L regime, a deconfinement transition occurs at T c 1/L. The transition is due to a competition between non-perturbative topological "molecules"-magnetic and neutral bioninstantons-and electrically charged W -bosons and superpartners. Compared to deconfinement in non-supersymmetric QCD(adj) [1], the novelty is the relevance of the light modulus scalar field. It mediates interactions between neutral bions (and W -bosons), serves as an order parameter for the Z (L) 2 center symmetry associated with the non-thermal circle, and explicitly breaks the electric-magnetic (Kramers-Wannier) duality enjoyed by non-supersymmetric QCD(adj) near T c . We show that deconfinement can be studied using an effective twodimensional gas of electric and magnetic charges with (dual) Coulomb and Aharonov-Bohm interactions, or, equivalently, via an XY-spin model with a symmetry-breaking perturbation, where each system couples to the scalar field. To study the realization of the discrete Rsymmetry and the Z remaining unbroken at the transition. Thus, the SYM transition appears similar to the one in SU (2) QCD(adj) [1] and is also likely to be characterized by continuously varying critical exponents.

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Nanostructured metal targets exhibit low-intensity linear optical absorption > 95%. Is such absorption also possible for ultra-intense femtosecond laser pulses? Analytic theory (low intensities) and particle-in-cell simulations (high intensities) show similarities and remarkable differences.