Monopoles in Compact U(1) -- Anatomy of the Phase Transition

We present evidence that the existence of a first order phase transition in compact U(1) with Wilson action is not related to monopole loops wrapping around the toroidal lattice, as has been previously suggested. Our analysis is based on the suppression of such loops by `soft boundary conditions' that correspond to an infinitely large chemical potential for the monopoles on the boundary, during the updating process. It is observed that the double peak structure characteristic for the first order phase transition reappears at sufficiently large lattice sizes and separations from the lattice boundary.