Large Nc Continuum Reduction and the Thermodynamics of QCD

Abstract

It is noted that if large Nc continuum reduction applies to an observable, then that observable is independent of temperature for all temperatures below some critical value. This fact, plus the fact that mesons and glueballs are weakly interacting at large Nc is used as the basis for a derivation of large Nc continuum reduction for the chiral condensate. The structure of this derivation is quite general and can be extended to a wide class of observables.