  According to the AdS/CFT correspondence, the strong coupling limit of large
n, N=4 supersymmetric gauge theory at finite temperature is described by
asymptotically anti de Sitter black holes. These black holes exist with planar,
spherical and hyperbolic horizon geometries. We concentrate on the hyperbolic
and spherical cases and probe the associated gauge theories with D3-branes and
Wilson loops. The D3-brane probe reproduces the coupling of the scalars in the
gauge theory to the background geometry and we find thermal stabilization in
the hyperbolic case. We investigate the vacuum expectation value of Wilson
loops with particular emphasis on the screening length at finite temperature.
We find that the thermal phase transition of the theory on the sphere is not
related to screening phenomena.
