TT¯-deformation of q-Yang-Mills theory

We derive the TT¯ -perturbed version of two-dimensional q-deformed Yang-Mills theory on an arbitrary Riemann surface by coupling the unperturbed theory in the first order formalism to Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. We show that the TT¯ -deformation results in a breakdown of the connection with a Chern-Simons theory on a Seifert manifold, and of the large N factorization into chiral and anti-chiral sectors. For the U(N) gauge theory on the sphere, we show that the large N phase transition persists, and that it is of third order and induced by instantons. The effect of the TT¯ -deformation is to decrease the critical value of the ’t Hooft coupling, and also to extend the class of line bundles for which the phase transition occurs. The same results are shown to hold for (q, t)-deformed Yang-Mills theory. We also explicitly evaluate the entanglement entropy in the large N limit of Yang-Mills theory, showing that the TT¯ -deformation decreases the contribution of the Boltzmann entropy.