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We describe the mapping at high density of topological structure of baryonic matter to a nuclear effective field theory that implements hidden symmetries emergent from strong nuclear correlations. The theory so constructed is found to be consistent with no conflicts with the presently available observations in both normal nuclear matter and compact-star matter. The hidden symmetries involved are "local flavor symmetry" of the vector mesons identified to be (Seiberg-)dual to the gluons of QCD and hidden "quantum scale symmetry" with an IR fixed point with a "genuine dilaton (GD)" characterized by non-vanishing pion and dilaton decay constants. Both the skyrmion topology for $N_f \geq 2$ baryons and the fractional quantum Hall (FQH) droplet topology for $N_f=1$ baryons are unified in the "homogeneous/hidden" Wess-Zumino term in the hidden local symmetry (HLS) Lagrangian. The possible indispensable role of the FQH droplets in going beyond the density regime of compact stars approaching scale-chiral restoration is explored by moving toward the limit where both the dilaton and the pion go massless., Comment: A few typo corrections in published version. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2103.01860

We present the argument that "pseudo-conformal" symmetry permeates from low density near nuclear matter to high density in the core of massive neutron stars. As a support of this argument, we describe how the quenched $g_A\approx 1$ in nuclei and the sound speed $v_s^2/c^2\approx 1/3$ in compact stars are controlled by emerging scale invariance in nuclear interactions. In our description, quasi-baryons could "masquerade" de-confined quarks in the interior of compact stars., Version to be published with a "Note Added"

The hadron-quark/gluon duality formulated in terms of a topology change at a density $n\gsim 2n_0$ $n_0\simeq 0.16$fm$^{-3}$ is found to describe the core of massive compact stars in terms of quasiparticles of fractional baryon charges, behaving neither like pure baryons nor like deconfined quarks. This can be considered as the Cheshire-Cat mechanism~\cite{CC} for the hadron-quark continuity arrived at bottom-up from skyrmions that is equivalent to the "MIT-bag"-to-skyrmion continuity arrived at top-down from quarks/gluons. Hidden symmetries, both local gauge and pseudo-conformal (or broken scale), emerge and give rise both to the long-standing "effective $g_A^\ast\approx 1$" in nuclear Gamow-Teller transitions at $\lsim n_0$ and to the pseudo-conformal sound velocity $v_{pcs}^2/c^2\approx 1/3$ at $\gsim 3n_0$. It is suggested that what has been referred to, since a long time, as "quenched $g_A$" in light nuclei reflects what leads to the dilaton-limit $g_A^{\rm DL}=1$ at near the (putative) infrared fixed point of scale invariance. These properties are confronted with the recent observations in Gamow-Teller transitions and in astrophysical observations., 17 page, 8 figures, published version

A chain of connections in compressed baryonic matter, up-to-date glaringly missing in nuclear effective field theory, between intrinsic or emergent symmetries of QCD, mesons-gluons dualities, vector meson dominance and Chern-Simons fields has recently been revealed, presaging a possible new paradigm in nuclear theory. It indicates a ubiquitous role, thus far unexplored, of hidden symmetries -- flavor-local and scale -- permeating from dilute baryonic systems to normal nuclear matter and then to compact-star matter. Here I give a brief account of the possibly "indispensable" relevance of the $\eta^\prime$ singular ring, a.k.a. fractional quantum Hall (FQH) droplet, to the properties of the lowest-lying vector mesons $\omega$ and $\rho$, relevant to dilepton production processes, argued to be Seiberg-dual to the gluons near the chiral restoration., Comment: 9 pages, no figures, typos corrected

When baryon-quark continuity is formulated in terms of a topology change without invoking "explicit " QCD degrees of freedom at a density higher than twice the nuclear matter density $n_0$ the core of massive compact stars can be described in terms of fractionally charged particles, behaving neither like pure baryons nor deconfined quarks. Hidden symmetries, both local gauge and pseudo-conformal (or broken scale), lead to the pseudo-conformal (PC) sound velocity $v_{pcs}^2/c^2\approx 1/3$ at $\gsim 3n_0$ in compact stars. We argue these symmetries are "emergent" from strong nuclear correlations and conjecture that they reflect hidden symmetries in QCD proper exposed by nuclear correlations. We establish a possible link between the quenching of $g_A$ in superallowed Gamow-Teller transitions in nuclei and the precocious onset at $n\gsim 3n_0$ of the PC sound velocity predicted at the dilaton limit fixed point. We propose that bringing in explicit quark degrees of freedom as is done in terms of the "quarkyonic" and other hybrid hadron-quark structure and our topology-change strategy represent the "hadron-quark duality" formulated in terms of the Cheshire-Cat mechanism~\cite{CC} for the smooth cross-over between hadrons and quarks. Confrontation with currently available experimental observations is discussed to support this notion., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. title changed, notion of "Cheshire-Catism" sharpened. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2101.07121

We construct a generalized EFT approach to dense compact-star matter that exploits the CCP for hadron-quark continuity at high density, hidden topology and hidden symmetries of QCD. No Landau-Ginzburg-Wilsonian-type phase transition is involved. The microscopic DoF of QCD possibly intervening at high baryonic density are traded in for fractionalized topological objects. Essential in the description are symmetries invisible in QCD in the matter-free vacuum: Scale symmetry, flavor local symmetry and parity-doubling. The partial emergence of scale symmetry is signaled by a dilatonic scalar in a "pseudo-conformal" structure. Flavor gauge symmetry manifests with the $\rho$ meson mass going toward a Wilsonian RGFP identified with the VMFP at which the gauge boson mass goes to zero. Parity doubling is to take place as the quasi-nucleon mass converges to the chiral invariant $m_0$. The theory accounts satisfactorily for all known properties of normal nuclear matter and makes certain predictions that are drastically different from what's available in the literature. In particular, it provides a topological mechanism, argued to be robust, for the cross-over from soft-to-hard EoS that predicts the star properties in overall agreement with the presently available data, including the maximum star mass $M_{max}\sim 2.3 M_\odot$ and the recent LIGO/Virgo GW data. What is most glaringly different from all other approaches known, however, is the prediction for the rapid convergence to a sound velocity of star $v_s^2\approx 1/3$ at a density $n\gsim 3 n_0$, far from the asymptotic density $\gsim 50n_0$ expected in pQCD. We interpret this to signal the onset of albeit approximate conformal symmetry in dense compact-star matter. The model developed here could bring out a new paradigm in nuclear/hadron physics, exploiting ideas in condensed matter physics, nuclear and particle physics and astrophysics., Comment: Version to appear in Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics

Many-brane universes are at the heart of several cosmological scenarios related to physics beyond the Standard Model. It is then a major concern to constrain these approaches. Two-brane Universes involving $SO(3,1)$-broken 5D bulks are among the cosmological models of interest. They also allow considering matter exchange between branes, a possible way to test these scenarios. Neutron disappearance (reappearance) toward (from) the hidden brane is currently tested with high-precision experiments to constrain the coupling constant $g$ between the visible and hidden neutron sectors. When dealing with the sub-GeV-scale quantum dynamics of fermions, any pair of braneworlds can be described by a non-commutative two-sheeted space-time $M_4\times Z_2$ from which $g$ emerges. Nevertheless, the calculation of the formal link between $g$ for a neutron and $SO(3,1)$-broken 5D bulks remains an open problem until now although necessary to constrain these braneworld scenarios. Thanks to a phenomenological model, we derive $g$ - for a neutron - between the two braneworlds endowed with their own copy of the standard model in a $SO(3,1)$-broken 5D bulk. Constraints on interbrane distance and brane energy scale (or brane thickness) are discussed. While brane energy scale below the GUT scale is excluded, energy scale up to the Planck limit allows neutron swapping detection in forthcoming experiments., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, update in references, accepted for publication in International Journal of Modern Physics A

Among the five-year government-funded World Class University Projects in Korea, the category-3 program approved at Hanyang University in Seoul led to an exploratory effort to go from neutron-rich nuclei to dense matter in neutron stars. The principal results in what transpired in the effort -- and what followed afterwards -- are described with the focus on the possibly important, hitherto unexplored, role played in nuclear dynamics of topology and hidden symmetries of QCD. The potential link to the proton mass problem is pointed out., 16 pages, no figures; invited paper to IJMPE, references corrected

I describe the long-standing search for a "smoking-gun" signal for the manifestation of (scale-)chiral symmetry in nuclear interactions. It is prompted by Gerry Brown's last unpublished note, reproduced verbatim below, on the preeminent role of pions and vector ($\rho$,$\omega$) mesons in providing a simple and elegant description of strongly correlated nuclear interactions. In this note written in tribute to Gerry Brown, I first describe a case of an unambiguous signal in axial-charge transitions in nuclei and then combine his ideas with the more recent development on the role of hidden symmetries in nuclear physics. What transpires is the surprising conclusion that the Landau-Migdal fixed point interaction $G_0^\prime$, the nuclear tensor forces and Brown-Rho scaling, all encoded in scale-invariant hidden local symmetry, as Gerry put, "run the show and make all forces equal.", Comment: To appear in G.E. Brown Memorial Volume

We investigate a new class of scalar multi-galileon models, which is not included in the commonly admitted general formulation of generalized multi-galileons. The Lagrangians of this class of models, some of them having already been introduced in previous works, are specific to multi-galileon theories, and vanish in the single galileon case. We examine them in details, discussing in particular some hidden symmetry properties which can be made explicit by adding total derivatives to these Lagrangians. These properties allow us to describe the possible dynamics for these new Lagrangians in the case of multi-galileons in the fundamental representation of a SO(N) and SU(N) global symmetry group, as well as in the adjoint representation of a SU(N) global symmetry group. We perform in parallel an exhaustive examination of some of these models, finding a complete agreement with the dynamics obtained using the symmetry properties. Finally, we conclude by discussing what could be the most general multi-galileon theory, as well as the link between scalar and vector multi-galileon models., Comment: 18 pages. Matches version published in PRD

QCD evolution equations in minimal subtraction schemes have a hidden symmetry: one can construct three operators that commute with the evolution kernel and form an SL(2) algebra, i.e. they satisfy (exactly) the SL(2) commutation relations. In this paper we find explicit expressions for these operators to two-loop accuracy going over to QCD in non-integer d = 4 - 2 is an element of space-time dimensions at the intermediate stage. In this way conformal symmetry of QCD is restored on quantum level at the specially chosen (critical) value of the coupling, and at the same time the theory is regularized allowing one to use the standard renormalization procedure for the relevant Feynman diagrams. Quantum corrections to conformal generators in d = 4 - 2 is an element of effectively correspond to the conformal symmetry breaking in the physical theory in four dimensions and the SL(2) commutation relations lead to nontrivial constraints on the renormalization group equations for composite operators. This approach is valid to all orders in perturbation theory and the result includes automatically all terms that can be identified as due to a nonvanishing QCD beta-function (in the physical theory in four dimensions). Our result can be used to derive three-loop evolution equations for flavor-nonsinglet quark-antiquark operators including mixing with the operators containing total derivatives. These equations govern, e.g., the scale dependence of generalized hadron parton distributions and light-cone meson distribution amplitudes., SCOAP3