Thermodynamics of fuzzy spheres in pp-wave matrix model Original Research Article

We discuss thermodynamics of fuzzy spheres in a matrix model on a pp-wave background. The exact free energy in the fuzzy sphere vacuum is computed in the image limit for an arbitrary matrix size N. The trivial vacuum dominates the fuzzy sphere vacuum at low temperature while the fuzzy sphere vacuum is more stable than the trivial vacuum at sufficiently high temperature. Our result supports that the fluctuations around the trivial vacuum would condense to form an irreducible fuzzy sphere above a certain temperature.