JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS, sa.5, 2001 (SCI-Expanded)
We analyse the deconfining phase transition in the SU(N) Georgi-Glashow model in 2 + 1 dimensions. We show that the phase transition is second order for any N, and the universality class is different from the Z(N) invariant Villain model. At large N the conformal theory describing the fixed point is a deformed SU(N)(1) WZNW model which has N - 1 massless fields. It is therefore likely that its self-dual infrared fixed point is described by the Fateev-Zamolodchikov theory of Z(N) parafermions.