Comments on the negative specific heat of the T(T)over-bar deformed symmetric product CFT

We show that the T (T) over bar deformation of conformal field theories whose entropy grows as S(E) similar to E-gamma for gamma > 1/2 exhibits negative specific heat in its microcanonical thermodynamic function S(epsilon). We analyze the large N symmetric product CFT as a concrete example of a CFT with this property and compute the thermodynamic functions such as S(epsilon) and epsilon(T). The negative specific heat in the microcanonical data is interpreted as signaling the first order phase transition when the system is coupled to a heat bath.

Automated summary

We demonstrate that the T (T) over bar deformation of conformal field theories with entropy growth characterized as S(E) similar to E-gamma (for gamma > 1/2) exhibits negative specific heat in its microcanonical thermodynamic function S(epsilon). Taking the large N symmetric product CFT as an example, we analyze and compute the thermodynamic functions such as S(epsilon) and epsilon(T). The negative specific heat observed in the microcanonical data is interpreted as indicating a first-order phase transition when the system is coupled to a heat bath.