Confinement at weak coupling

The free energy of U(N) and SU(N) gauge theory was recently found to be of order N0 to all orders of a perturbative expansion about a center-symmetric orbit of vanishing curvature. Here I consider extended models for which this expansion is perturbatively stable. The extreme case of an SU(2) gauge theory whose configuration space is restricted to center-symmetric orbits has recently been investigated on the lattice [K. Langfeld, N. Lages, H. Reinhardt, in Lattice2005 proceedings hep-lat/0509156]. In extension of my talk, a discussion and possible interpretation of the observed finite temperature phase transition is given. The transfer matrix of constrained SU(N) lattice gauge theory is constructed for any finite temperature.